


Galaxies Collide

by once_a_rogue



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2018-11-06 02:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 30,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11027001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/once_a_rogue/pseuds/once_a_rogue
Summary: “Did you seriously fly a TIE-fighter?”“Hi, darling.  Nice to see you, too. I’m fine, by the way.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Anything recognizable belongs to LucasFilms/Disney/whoever holds the copyrights to the EU stuff. 
> 
> This is my take on how the TFA universe would have shaped up had Jaina Solo existed - and met Poe Dameron. It will follow through their very first meeting, and set up some background, and then through the TFA storyline - and maybe beyond!

Neither would remember the first time that they met, not at first. It would come later, in small flashes; as they began to piece together who one another were, they would remember the first time they had seen each other, a tower of building blocks between them on his bedroom floor, rain lashing the windows, the room dark but for the occasional flash of lightning. He hadn’t known her name at the time, nor she his. They hadn’t even spoken the first word to one another. He had been sulking in his room, grumpy at the storm for keeping him stuck inside, when a fierce knock came at the front door. His mother answered, and muttered voices floated to him, and though he couldn’t make out the words over the raging wind, he could feel the tension, the apprehension radiating from the newcomer. They didn’t come in, and as soon as the door shut his mother hurried to his room, shutting off lights as she went, a small girl in her arms. She sat the girl on the rug next to him, and gave him a nervous smile.

“I have a new game that we can play with our new friend, okay? We’re going to turn off all the lights, and be very, very quiet, and play that we’re hiding from bandits. I’m going to be the advance guard, and keep a look out, and you two are in charge of keeping Paji here safe and secure.” She gestured to a stuffed nexu the girl was holding. “So stay here where the bandits can’t find you, and be very, very quiet.”  
His mother patted his curly hair, and gave the little girl a reassuring smile, then went to close the curtains and darken the rest of the house. He stared incredulously after her. This wasn’t a game. He had seen the tight worry lines around her eyes, the smile that didn’t reach all the way to them. He heard her open her bedroom closet, take out her blaster. They were hiding, and his mother was afraid; no, that wasn’t it, his mother was never afraid of anything, but - nervous, worried, anxious? He didn’t know why, but he knew that he had to be brave right now - he needed to keep the little girl calm and quiet. She sat across from him, unmoving, clutching the stuffed nexu tightly to her, soft brown eyes wide as she took in these new surroundings. He held out a block to her, but she only looked at it, then up at him, still unmoving. Unsure what else to do, he kept building, hoping she would understand and play along. They spent a few minutes in silence, save for the unrelenting storm, he building his city ever taller, dreaming about seeing the glittering heights of Coruscant from the sky, she watching, hugging the nexu, alert and wary, but curious.  
He saw the first wiggle of a block, the moment when it would all come crashing down, felt his heart rise to choke him as he imagined the horrific noise, bound to attract bandits or gundarks or whatever it was they were hiding from. 

But it never came. The towering city never crashed. The blocks hung, suspended in midair, and then slowly started to piece themselves back together. His first thought was that he was dreaming; then he noticed the girl. She had dropped the nexu, and was holding out both tiny hands, directing the blocks, one by one, back into place, exactly where he had had them. When the last block settled, she looked up into his astonished face and smiled, a broad, proud smile, eyes sparkling. His mother had told him all about the Force, and the Jedi, and he was overwhelmed with questions - questions he wouldn’t get to ask, not that night anyways. Instead, he picked up two of his toy X-Wings, and offered one to the girl. Still grinning, she took it from him, and he lost track of time as they played at trying to outmaneuver one another - a game she could have easily won, had she been inclined to use less conventional methods. 

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but the next thing he knew he was waking in his bed, warm sunlight streaming through his window. The girl was nowhere to be seen. His mother came to greet him, and when he inquired after their guest, she became very serious. He must forget about last night, she told him, and everything he had seen and heard (which hadn’t been much). The girl had never been there, there had been no knock at the door, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He must, never, ever tell anyone what had happened. Did he understand? 

He did, though he still didn’t know why. Eight-year-old Poe Dameron had no way of knowing that Luke Skywalker has visited his house that night, that he had called on an old friend in a desperate plea to hide his niece from people who did want to steal her, people who wanted to use her and twist her to upend the galaxy, and that the tree outside his bedroom window, a gift from Luke himself to Poe’s mother, was instrumental in doing so. 

He tried his best to obey his mother and forget that night, but occasionally curiosity would tickle at the back of his mind. When he played with his X-Wings, or saw a glass of Corellian whiskey, the brown the same peculiar shade as her eyes, or even sometimes when he sat on his rug, playing in the rain. The memories would lessen with time, but every so often that smile would creep into his mind, and he would wonder who she was.

It would be nearly twenty years before he would know how their fates would become entwined, how they would meet again, how they would need one another; how that smile would be half his reason for living.


	2. Chapter 2

Jaina Solo had actually not thought about that night again; she had been not quite two at the time, and not-quite-two-year-old memories, even Force-sensitive memories, aren’t the best. Years later, when she passed those deep brown eyes in the corridor of a New Republic cruiser, something tickled at the back of her mind; she had stopped and stared after the stranger, but her Master’s firm hand on her arm had steered her on. It would be a good while before the pieces came together. 

As it stood now, childhood memories were all that filled her mind, but memories of a very different sort. Memories of her twin, her other half, a piece of her soul that would always now feel hollow and empty. The boy laid out before her bore no resemblance to the smiling, easy-going, wise-cracking one that had been by her side since before they were born. The boy who had learned to fly with her, who had trained to be a Jedi with her, who had fallen in battle beside her - only she hadn’t fallen. And now she couldn’t comprehend the sight before her, the shell that had been her twin, looking so peaceful and so impossible. She didn’t cry, though all around her people sniffled, her mother openly sobbing, her father’s eyes red and broken. Sadness would come later, but at the moment all she felt was anger, boiling and raging through her veins; anger that she had nowhere to direct. The battle was over, the enemy destroyed, there was no vengeance to seek - but Jaina wanted it, wanted desperately to make someone, something else feel as terribly as she did, wanted someone to pay for the tears on her mother’s cheeks, for the cold numbness pouring from her older brother, for destroying her family. If only she had known then just how completely the family would soon be destroyed. 

**********

It would not be her parents, or her uncle, or her brother who pulled her out of the darkness that began to consume her. Days would separate her from Jacen’s funeral, but not from her anger. Her family would go back to their duties - Luke and Ben to their training at the temple, her mother and father to wherever the galaxy most needed them - and she would return to hers, go back to being Rogue Nine during the day and training with her unorthodox Jedi Master at night. She tried to keep busy, but it was never enough. All of the anger inside of her, with nowhere to escape, began to eat at her very soul, and she became more and more reckless in battle, more ruthless in sims and her combat training, until one horrible night found her with her lightsaber to her Master’s throat and murder in her eyes. He had been goading her, true, and his intent had been to push her to this very point - so that he could know if he still had a chance to save her, or if she would break. He was stronger than her, he knew, and had no intention of letting her kill him - he just needed to know if she would, if she could. She did break, but not in the way he had feared. The lightsaber dropped, disengaging as it clattered to the ground; her entire body shook; tears replaced the cold fury in her eyes, and she collapsed.

Kyp held her, huddled on the training room floor, as she sobbed and screamed, stroking her hair and trying to soothe her through the Force. Eventually she calmed, stilled, and finally fell into an exhausted sleep. He carried her to her bunk (using small Force suggestions to keep the ship's inhabitants from passing by in the halls along the way) and then settled himself in the desk chair in the corner of her small billet so that she wouldn’t be alone when she woke. Kyp had tasted darkness himself, and knew how strong the draw was, how tempting to give in to the promise of power, of a solution to all your problems, an end to the pain. He had often wondered if this wasn’t why Master Skywalker had consented to allow him to apprentice Jaina. Be it Jedi foresight or simple observation, it wasn’t hard to sense how powerful Jaina had the to potential to become; but that power was raw and wild, and Kyp had thought that he, given his own experience, might be in the best position to temper and train Jaina to control it, to not give in to the temptation of the dark. This small hurdle was only the beginning, and he knew it would probably not be the last time she slipped; the feeling never went away, and the darkness always toyed with you once it had you in its sights, but he vowed, watching her face slowly grow peaceful in sleep and the tears dry on her cheeks, that he would not lose her to it. 

Little did Kyp Durron know, he would soon lose everything to the darkness.

**********

Jaina stood with the rest of Rogue Squadron in the back of the briefing room, trying to listen to General Antilles’ briefing but unable to shake the vague unease and slight danger sense floating to her through the Force. She had reached out to her parents, uncle, brother, but all seemed well. Well, Ben’s sense of ‘well’ had settled into a new normal of almost-void, but her uncle seemed confident of Ben’s recovery. Jacen’s death had devastated their older brother as well, but instead of turning to anger Ben had become withdrawn; from his family, from his training, even from the Force. Jaina could feel enough from his to know he was alive, and that he didn’t share her danger sense, so she tried to let it drop. 

She had managed to focus her attention on General Antilles (while vaguely wondering when it would stop feeling weird to think of ‘Uncle Wedge’ as ‘General Antilles’) for a full five minutes when she felt Kyp approaching, felt the edges of panic he was trying to control seeping through the Force, which only brought her own unease to the surface. He called to her through the Force and Jaina quietly slipped out of the conference room, hoping she could go unnoticed. Kyp’s normally calm demeanor was shattered; he ran a nervous hand through his hair - they needed to hurry to the temple, he said, he wasn’t entirely certain why, but they needed to be there.

Jaina didn’t question, just hurried after him to the hanger (sending a quick message to her squadron leader as she went) and was plotting a hyperspace jump less than ten minutes later. She watched the lines blur across the cockpit windows impatiently, anxious about whatever was going on at the temple, something bad enough to spook Kyp the way it had. 

She was still in hyperspace when she felt the fear, the pain, the death, the sudden voids in the Force that she hadn’t felt until they were gone. She was too shocked and terrified to cry, to even think as her ship reverted to realspace - she felt the stick jerk under her hand as Kyp grabbed her controls through the Force and corrected her course. And then she saw the smoke, billowing even through the pouring rain, marking what had been the Jedi temple. 

She reached out desperately for life, any life - and found the fading warmth of dying Jedi, a scattering of non-Force sensitive beings, and one dark, cold, terribly familiar presence. 

Ben. 

They landed a good distance away, hoping they hadn’t been spotted, and hurried towards the temple. Everything was a blur - broken, dead bodies of friends, strangers, Jedi and Stormtroopers, so much death and destruction. And fighting. Because she couldn’t hide herself completely from her brother. He knew she was here, and by extension that Kyp would be here, and he came for them. The fighting was a blur of lightsabers and blaster blots, screams of pain and dying, the horrible coppery scent of blood and the acrid stink of burning flesh. She lost track of Kyp, lost track of everything save the end of her lightsaber blade - 

\- And then she was falling, not even registering the pain, blackness crowding the edges of her vision, spreading until all she saw was a fuzzy slit of smoky red light from the fire, ears ringing with an absence of sound. She felt death seeping into her bones, and she reached out in the Force for Jacen, for her twin, accepting her fate and longing to see him again. 

The last thing she remembered was a warm hand settling across her forehead. 

**********

When she woke, she was only mildly disappointed to be alive - she had so wanted to see Jacen - but she discovered she was overwhelmingly relieved, and not quite yet done with living. 

She was in a medical ward, more tubes and sensors attached to her than her body seemed to have room for, a med droid humming and clicking in the corner behind her. She registered presences, a LOT of them, beyond the curtains surrounding her bed. And - rock, walls, ceiling, everything made of rock. She caught glimpses of people hurrying past, wearing green uniforms she didn’t recognize. Green? Everyone in the New Republic wore black, didn’t they? Even the medics.

Just before panic could settle in, the curtains rustled and her mother came into view, looking exhausted, red-eyed, but still with that sweet, comforting smile, now always a bit sad. She too was dressed in green. 

Jaina had a million questions, but all she managed to say was a strangled “Mom” before the tears overtook. Her mother sat beside her, holding onto her hand delicately, smoothing her hair back and murmuring soothingly platitudes that Jaina couldn’t register. When she had calmed, her mother went into ‘diplomat mode’, and, with more calm than Jaina felt her words really warranted, began the process of asking all of her daughter’s unanswered questions. They were in the med ward of a Resistance base (a what?) and she, Leia Organa-Solo, dutiful New Republic Senator, was a General in the forces. Jaina had been given an honorable medical discharge from New Republic service during the three weeks she had been comatose in the med bay, and Leia thought this was more a bid by Wedge to keep her alive than anything, a warning - stay away. The attack on the temple had been led by the First Order, under the command of a man who now called himself Kylo Ren. Leia did not say the man’s true identity - she didn’t have to. As far as she new, none of the Jedi had made it out of the temple; and when Jaina whispered softly “Kyp?” her mother just shook her head, looking down at her lap to hide the tears in her eyes. Luke had not been at the temple when the assault occurred, and had arrived back after the First Order had gone. He had been the one to find Jaina - he could only assume that they had though she was dead, being so grievously injured, and so deep in a healing trance her vitals were barely discernable. Still, she thought, Ben should have been able to tell - only he wasn’t Ben anymore, so maybe that complicated things. She inquired after her uncle, and her father; and watched her mother’s face harden into a steely resolve she knew all too well. 

Both wracked by grief and guilt, they had fled - separately - and Leia had no idea to where, or when, if, they would come back. 

Jaina stared at the rocky ceiling, too numb to really feel the impact of what her mother had told her, and almost began to regret her not-done-with-living business.


	3. Chapter 3

Poe paced the dim corridor outside the reception hall, listening to the soft sounds of silverware against plates, glasses clinking, murmured voices and muffled laughter as every diplomat in the New Republic tried to pretend they didn’t all want to slit one another’s throats and were having a good time celebrating their new galaxy’s anniversary. He felt extra conspicuous, sweat soaked and dirt streaked, still in his flight suit, just on the other side of a gilded room full of finery, and sincerely hoped ‘the General’ would send for him soon. He was told he had been granted an audience, but the ‘General’ did not seem to be in any hurry; he perked up every time someone walked past, hoping that each new person had been sent to fetch him, disappointed every time. 

Bored of the white walls (made an even more fascinating grey by the low lights) Poe surreptitiously stuck his head around the corner of one of the curtained arches looking into the hall, watching the flickering lights and bright swirls of color. Watching these painted people who had somehow managed to put themselves in charge of the galaxy, their false smiles and exaggerated laughter not quite hiding the contempt and greed in their eyes. Not for the first time, he wonder what he was doing, taking orders from these people, fighting for them, watching them slowly hand the hard-won galaxy back into the hands of evil; and then his eyes caught on the star filled sky, glittering outside the balcony across the room. Oh yeah - he did it because it was his only legitimate means of being in those stars; one day, he promised himself, he would have a ship of his own, and answer only to his own conscience. 

And then his gaze caught a flash of red just under those stars; the rather tight red dress of a young woman, leaning against the stone archway leading to the balcony, looking painfully bored and impatient - but no less completely lovely for it. She glanced up, caught his gaze, and a slow smirk lifted one corner of her mouth until it became something of a smile. A tingle of recognition ran through him, but he was far too preoccupied to entertain it. He was transfixed, knew he was staring far longer than was appropriate but not able to bring himself to care - and it didn’t seem that she minded, at any rate. Eyes never leaving his, she slowly tilted her head to the side, motioning towards the balcony, and then slipped out of the room. 

Poe didn’t remember making the conscious decision to follow, but follow he did, skirting the edges of the lavish reception and darting out the archway. Cool night air greeted him, brought him a little back to his senses - until the bright red of her dress caught him, one small hand beckoning to him from the bottom of the stairs before she turned and hurried off into the gardens beyond. He followed, feeling a grin creep across his face as she wove a path through the labyrinth of flowers, staying just within his sight and just out of his reach. He forgot everything he was supposed to be doing, forgot that he was to wait for a very important meeting, that he was technically still on duty - forgot everything but his need to catch the girl, to find out if her hair was as silky as her dress, see if the spark in her eyes would kindle to a fire, feel -

\- A hand darted from behind a tall hedge, wrapping around his wrist and pulling him off the path, into a leafy alcove. She was several inches shorter, so that he had to look down to meet the intense, pale brown gaze, heart hammering in his chest, wondering when he had become such a sappy fool - 

\- And then she smiled, a genuine smile that made him feel warm through to his toes.

A whispered “Hi,” in a soft, but by no means delicate, voice. 

“Hi.” He rasped back, not even entirely certain a sound had come out, internally cursing himself, get it together, Dameron. 

Her lips parted, and his eyes were drawn to them, transfixed. They moved closer without ever seeming to, bodies pressing close but not quite touching, faces tilting -

\- And then a shrill, faintly mechanical voice sounded across the gardens.

“Mistress! Mistress, oh there you are, your mother is ever so … oh.”

A golden droid had been hurriedly shuffling towards them, but stopped abruptly when it, he?, saw Poe, glancing between he and the girl with an almost scandalized air. She heaved a very heavy sigh and flashed an apologetic half-smirk Poe’s way.

“On my way, Threepio,” she muttered, ducking under Poe’s arm back towards the palatial hall on the other side of the garden. She threw a smirk over her shoulder and called “see you around, flyboy,” and then she was gone in a swirl of red skirt. 

Poe felt proper sense returning to him, and heat rushed into his cheeks; he had to get back inside, had probably already missed his meeting, was snubbing a General court-martial worthy, or would he just get a crap detail for the next few months?, and - the droid was still staring at him. Poe drew himself up, trying to look as tall and in control as possible, wondering how a droid’s stare could be so withering. The droid tipped closer, examining his face, and then -

“You are Captain Dameron.” It was not a question. Poe gave a curt nod, more confused than ever. 

“Right this way. The General is waiting.” The droid scuttled off, but Poe was too stunned to follow. The droid - Threepio, the girl had called him - turned, and called “come along, come along,” waving his hand irritably as though Poe was an ill-behaving child. Poe unstuck his feet and followed, his strangest day ever becoming increasingly more strange with each step, listening to the droid mutter under its, well, not breath, but, whatever. 

He was lead to a small briefing room deep in the senatorial building, empty but for himself and Threepio, and instructed to wait - again. The General would be along shortly. 

This time, he was not left in suspense for very long. A hidden panel in the back of the room opened and a woman stepped through - she was older than he, probably by a good twenty years, her dark hair streaked with grey - but she was still regal, elegant, lovely, and with an air that left no question who was in command. None of this surprised Poe in a general; what surprised him was that he recognized her, from old holos, from recent news feeds, from stories his mother and father had told - but her knew her as Princess, as Senator, not as General. She was dressed simply, in no uniform he recognized, no insignia he would identify on her clothing. She smiled, seeing his shock, and extended a small hand, giving his own proffered one a firm shake.  
Introductions were brief, and then they were seated across the table from one another, and Poe found himself giving a report on his last mission, wondering all the while what he was doing in this room, with this woman, in this place - what she was doing here, in the open, so close to those loyal to the first order. When he finished, he expected some sort of rebuke for his actions - and instead found himself being offered the opportunity he had dreamed of in the dim hallway what felt like a lifetime (but had really barely been half a standard hour) ago; an offer to leave the New Republic, to be free, but to still be able to fly. 

He heard himself accepting, but didn’t consciously remember making the decision. He felt no regret, no surprise, in the action though; only relief, and an odd swell of pride. 

“We can discuss details later,” General Organa was saying, as the hidden panel slid open yet again to admit a small figure, and Poe felt a flicker of confusion. He knew her - the girl from the garden, red dress now replaced with a non-descript olive green jumpsuit, and no less the lovely for it. His shock must have registered on his face, for the General’s smile crinkled a little at the corners as she inclined her head to the girl.

“I take it you’ve met my daughter?” 

It was not really a question - and Poe felt blood rush to his face, which only made both women smile all the more. This girl was the General’s daughter, of course she was. His luck just couldn’t be that good. Which also meant she had known damn well who he was, and why he was here. And was now thoroughly enjoying herself at his discomfort. Determined to have some semblance of an upper hand, he steeled himself and replied,

“Not formally, I don’t believe. But well enough.”

General Organa only shook her head, and began tapping on her data pad. From the glint in her daughter’s eyes, though, it seemed the girl took his response as a challenge. He was saved whatever retaliation she was thinking up by General Organa standing and turning to address the girl. 

“You’ve taken your leave then?” 

Her daughter nodded in response, one quick sharp motion, and replied “We’re ready when you are. The sooner the better, though.” 

General Organa nodded, and turned back to Poe. 

“Jaina will escort back to your fighter. Settle your affairs, and we will rendezvous in 10 solar days.”  
She was gone through the hidden panel before he would respond, leaving him alone with Jaina. Jaina. It fit her, like her voice - soft, but not quite delicate. 

He grasped for something to say, but was soon saved the effort as Jaina crossed quickly to the other door, and motioned him to follow. He had to hurry to keep up with her quick stride as they made their way back toward the hangar where his fighter was docked, vaguely wondering how she knew which one to go to. 

“So,” he said, attempting for something akin to levity. “What brings a Resistance leader’s daughter to a New Republic Senate ball?” 

He got a glare and a hissed “Keep that quiet, would you?!” in response. 

Several corridors later, when they were nearly to the hanger, she answered. 

“As part of my - compensation - for early retirement from New Republic service, I was given an honorary council position.” A pause. “Their way of keeping tabs I suppose. My presence is expected at these events, and the General does not approve of my going without an escort - namely, herself.” A mischievous smile crossed her lips. “She was none too happy when I gave Threepio the slip earlier.” 

“Retirement?” 

Her face clouded. “There was … an accident. I was medically discharged.”

Jaina looked at him, willing him to understand with her eyes. “It isn’t exactly safe for me to come to New Republic space. To be out in the open with the First Order so close. But it would be dangerous for everyone if I refused. Our position is very - tenuous.” 

A million questions flooded his mind, but he couldn’t think of any way to phrase them, anything to say that didn’t seem heinously intrusive. 

They reached the hanger and stopped next to his X-Wing. She studied him, arms folded and head cocked to one side, for a long minute. Then she pulled a data pad from a pocket of her jumpsuit, tapped something onto it, and held it out for him to see.

“Memorize those coordinates - your rendezvous point. Make a series of jumps before you head there, to confuse anyone who might follow you.” She glanced at the craft behind him. “There’s a tracer beacon on that. Remove it before you leave.” 

Slipping the data pad in her pocket, she opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and looked up at him for a long moment. Something about the color of her eyes, an odd, pale brown - 

“My mother does not trust people very easily. Nor do I.” 

She stepped closer, leaning into him until there was barely a wisp of distance.

“Don’t make me regret this.”

Finally, finally - their lips met.


	4. Chapter 4

Something terrible had her running through the base, the Force prickling distress from the top of her head to the bottom of her spine; what, she did not yet know, only that she needed to get to command, find her mother - 

\- She slowed as she approached the cavernous room, not wanting to alarm the rest of the occupants, heart hammering as she fought her facial muscles for control. Her mother stood a few feet away, listening to a report, face grave. Jaina could barely make out the voices, but it was enough. 

Poe. The First Order had him. Ben …. No. 

A light surged overhead and Jaina fought to control the anger and panic rising in her before she lost further control. Her noticed the disturbance, turned to her, and their eyes locked for a long moment before Jaina turned to go -

“Where are you going?”

She froze, spitting a harsh glare at her mother. “Where do you think I’m going?”

“You’ll get him killed, Jaina. Get both of you killed. If he finds out the connection - ” 

Her ears were ringing, shrill white noise drowning out the rest of her mother’s reasoning, black spots floating across her vision, anger and adrenaline and blood draining away, rushing from her head to pool somewhere below her feet; her mother’s hand materialized, firm but soft, on her upper arm, and Jaina realized she had been swaying. 

She nodded, as much to assure her mother she was alright as to let General Organa know she was right - and oh, Jaina hated it when she was right. But she was; Jaina couldn’t go in with her emotions roiling as they were - she couldn’t conceal herself enough to get past the thing that had consumed her brother. Poe had known the danger when he went in, they both had. That didn’t make it any easier to accept though; it didn’t make her mother being right any easier either. 

“I have another assignment for you anyways, Lieutenant Commander.” Jaina looked up - her mother still lurked somewhere in the older woman’s eyes, so like her own, but she had mostly been replaced by the General, the leader, the commanding office. There was no time for being coddled, no matter how desperately Jaina wished her mother would hold her in her lap like she was still a little girl and wipe away her tears and sing her sweet songs until the nightmares fled - only these weren’t nightmares, and she wasn’t a little girl. She was a pilot, a Resistance fighter, a Jedi for all that was worth. She straightened, came to attention, waited for orders.   
She sincerely doubted the General had actually had orders for her before two minutes ago - she just wanted her out of here and safely preoccupied before she could go storming towards the First Order.

She reached out in the Force, trying to find the bright, warm point of light that was Poe Dameron, trying to hold on.

**********

The com came to her just as she and the two pilots sent with her were finishing their ‘reconnaissance’ and preparing for the hyperspace jump back to base - and, alone in the cockpit of her X-Wing, Jaina let herself cry ugly, hot tears of relief, tears that washed away the pent up terror she had been trying uselessly to block. 

Somehow, inexplicably, Poe had escaped. From the First Order. From under the nose of the thing that she used to call big brother. Had made it back to Jakku, of all places, and was en route back to the base, mostly unharmed. She smiled for the first time in a long while as she watched the stars streak into the blurs of hyperspace and impatiently headed back to the home that was in his arms. 

**********

She rushed headlong into the med bay, helmet still tucked under her arm and the sleeves of her flight suit swinging around her waist. Poe sat on an exam table, talking quietly to the medic, face and arms a scatter of blood and cuts, but whole and alive and there. She waited a long breath for her heart to stop choking her before making herself known -

“Did you seriously fly a TIE-fighter?” 

He looked up, smiled sardonically, but humor and happiness danced in his dark eyes. He stared unashamedly, drinking her in as surely as she was him.

“Hi, darling. Nice to see you, too. I’m fine, by the way.” 

There was no malice, no bite to his words. Mushy was generally not their style, and they both liked it that way. She smirked back, slowly crossed to him, dropping the helmet on an empty table along the way. Settling into the space between his knees, she took his face in her hands, studied the features she could trace in her sleep, no less handsome for the dirt and blood smearing them, looked deep into the eyes that seemed to see her very soul, felt her heart break when she saw the lingering pain and terror. She wouldn’t let the anger rise; he needed her right now, needed her to be here, not wreaking vengeance. 

She forced a lightness into her voice, “I knew you were fine.”

A real smile that time; good. She pressed her lips to his forehead, felt his heavy sigh against her as strong arms, trembling only slightly, came around her waist, pulled her close, held her tight. 

She had no idea how long they stayed that way; wouldn’t have cared if it had been forever.


	5. Chapter 5

She took her time powering down her X-Wing, not really wanting to climb down, not wanting to face what, who, was waiting for her. She had seen the ship as they had come in over Takodana, had seen him standing in the middle of the wreckage that had been Maz’s fortress, hair more grey than she remembered; and had then seen the dark figure that she would have known anywhere, mask be damned, retreating on the other side of the clearing - and her only thought was that her little family (Uncle Luke notwithstanding) was in one place. And then someone was shooting at her and she thought of little else in the short, furious battle but shooting back. 

She could have stayed, could have met him with her mother, but she didn’t. Told herself she didn’t care, wouldn’t let herself feel guilt as she turned her craft and left with the rest of the makeshift squadron they had hastily assembled when the comm came through that BB8 had been spotted, and prepared for the jump back to base. He had left her, and she would not be the one to go to him now, would not give in, would not want to see him. She really did want to see Chewie, though. And that was it, that was why she was tempted to land next to the General’s shuttle; just because she missed Chewie. She did not, would not, miss her father. 

Still preoccupied with her own whirling thoughts, she never heard the approach, was actually caught off guard (and shrieked a bit, though she would deny it if anyone asked) when strong arms wrapped around her as she was half-way down the ladder, lifting and spinning her. Her legs wrapped around Poe’s waist automatically, and his infectious laughter had her giggling along with him, despite the bleakness of her own mood.

He started an excited stream of half-sentence battle play-by-play, punctuated by “Did you see!”, “And then that dive!”, “And like five at once!”. 

“I was there, funnily enough,” she remarked, dry but light, smiling indulgently at his manic tirade- it was generally his MO after battle, releasing the pent up tension through chatter, motion, action, whereas she just wanted a hot sanisteam and bed. Though in the past couple of years she had found that the two were not wholly incompatible, and they could each meet their needs simultaneously. Efficiently. 

Jaina quite liked efficiency. 

Poe ceased his play-by-play and mock-glared at her, then placed his somehow cool forehead against her own sweaty one, and sighed.

“And BB8,” he whispered. 

“And BB8,” she echoed, nodding against him.  
As if on cue, excited beeping sounded across the landing pad, and Jaina looked up to see the small orange and white droid whirling towards them at top speed. Poe grinned at her, set her down quickly, and, catching her nod, ran to meet his companion. 

She was abruptly torn from watching their reunion, however, eyes snared by the now hateful sight of a ship she had once thought of as more home than any place she had ever been. She turned quickly away before she could spy any of its inhabitants, steeling her resolve and blinking against the sudden hot, burning feeling behind her eyes. 

Just battle fatigue, she told herself. 

She was having to tell herself a lot of things lately. 

**********

Fate wouldn’t let her hide for very long. 

Her commlink beeped, summoning her to command; she dragged her feet the entire way. Stepping into the cool stone room, blinking away the brightness of outside, she swept her gaze around - 

\- straight into her father’s eyes. 

They were sad, tired, more wrinkled around the edges than she remembered, lacking the warm twinkle that had shone at her across breakfast tables and cockpits, but they were still her father’s eyes. 

She would never acknowledge the way her heart squeezed when those eyes brightened to see her. 

The corners of Han Solo’s mouth turned up, and he held his arms out - slightly, hesitantly, almost afraid.

“Hey, sweetheart,”

And the squeezing around her heart turned into an icy clench. How dare he pretend everything was okay, that he could just say ‘hey’ and hug and all would be well? How dare he think it would be that easy? 

She drew herself up, inclined her head slightly to him. “Father,” she said, tone brusque and dripping with disdain. 

She turned and walked away, ignoring her mother’s exasperated call, heading further into the base, not giving him the satisfaction of running until she was out of sight. Unable to bear seeing the way his face fell, unable to bear how desperately old and broken her iciness made him look. 

Ignoring the mumbled “I used to be ‘Daddy’” that still reached her ringing ears.

**********

There was a semi-hidden alcove at the end of the hallway, just behind a staircase back outside. 

It was a hiding spot Jaina was fond of, where you could still hear the comings and goings of the base but be safe from prying eyes.

She was not surprised to hear hear heavy boot-steps coming toward her, was not surprised when Poe’s face appeared around the corner, not surprised that he had found her so quickly. 

It wasn’t, after all, their first meeting in this spot. 

Jaina glared at him, at once angry and relieved that he was intruding on her misery.

Poe didn’t say anything, just let her rant about her father, his audacity in showing up here, in trying to pretend things were alright between them, trying to act like he still had any right to be her father. 

Poe had quietly inched towards her during her tirade, settled his hands on her hips, grounded and quieted her, still wordless.

Jaina sagged against him, fight going out of her, almost annoyed at the calming effect Poe could have on her; she wondered, not for the first time, if he wasn’t just a bit Force sensitive, if he was unconsciously able to use the Force to soothe people, to rally them. 

“So ... you’re not even just maybe a little glad to see him?”

She could have hit him, if the stupid ass hadn’t been right. She was really tired of people being right. She settled for glaring at him, eyes flashing as much agitation as she could possible put into them. But he just smiled down at her, eyebrows rising higher and higher, and then he did the most evil thing she thought he had ever done.

He started tickling her. 

Jaina dodged, jerked, desperate to get away but unable to go very far in the tiny alcove, trying to stifle her laughter and maintain her annoyance. 

“Fine, fine!” She finally gasped. “You win.”

The grin on his face told her just how stupid that had been to say - it would haunt her for the rest of forever. But when his lips met hers, it was more than worth it. 

The gruff sound of an all-too-familiar throat being cleared broke through their happy interlude. Jaina felt Poe stiffen and drop his arms, felt the fear and embarrassment coming from him; felt her own ire coming back full force. Releasing Poe’s bottom lip from between her teeth, she rolled her head to the side and gave her father an exasperated scowl her 16-year-old self would have been proud of. 

Her 25-year-old self was slightly ashamed. 

“What?” She spat. 

He had the good sense to pretend he hadn’t seen anything. To not try to be ‘Dad’ at the moment. He merely looked tired, hands braced against cross beams from the low ceiling, and sighed. 

“I had hoped,” he muttered, “that we could talk. You and me.” He did give Poe a quick, almost threatening glance at that, but let it drop, so Jaina chose to let that one slide. She supposed it couldn’t be easy, seeing your daughter suddenly a grown woman. And then she reminded herself that it was his own fault and she would not feel sorry for him. 

Feeling a stab of remorse at leaving Poe to fend for himself (he may as well get this meeting over with) she pushed past her father, muttered “I have work to do,” and headed up the stairs towards where her X-Wing was parked. 

She knew she was being childish, petty, almost cruel, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. She wasn’t quite done with being angry at him, wasn’t quite ready to forgive. 

The one person in the galaxy she had always believed would be there, that she could count on, that would never let her down - had abandoned her, her mother, when they needed him most. 

How was she supposed to look past that?

**********

Poe stayed frozen a heartbeat after Jaina left, then managed to unstick himself. He smiled faintly at the looming figure before him, and gestured back down the hall.

“I’m just going to - ” 

An arm came in front of him, braced against the side of the hall, blocking his exit. 

Poe stopped, swallowed, waited. He had heard plenty of stories about Han Solo, and wasn’t entirely eager to see just how true they were.

The older man looked ready to spit nails; his mouth worked, as if trying to decide just how angry he was and how best to punish this other man who had dared touch his little girl.

But all that came out was “Do you love my daughter?”

Poe felt himself smile, nod, reply with genuine feeling - “More than anything.” 

Han Solo nodded, dropped his arm, muttered “Alright, then.”

Then his face changed, scrunched with concern, and he pointed up the stairs - “Am I supposed to …”

Poe nodded. “I’d run.” 

********** 

Jaina was halfway to her X-Wing when she heard her father calling her name. Her instinct was to ignore him, but there entirely too many curious pilots and mechanics floating around, their attention snared by Han’s shouts. She paused, waited for him to catch up, turned and folded her arms across her body. 

She waited, looking up into his sad, tired, pleading eyes.   
He ran a nervous hand over his too-long hair, and sighed.

“Look, kid, I … I don’t even know where to start. ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t seem to cut it. But I am, sweetheart. I was a fool, a coward even,” rambling, now “and I didn’t know how to handle it, didn’t know what to do, first Jacen, and then Ben, and Luke left, and the doctors didn’t expect you to pull through and I…”

“Abandoned us? Abandoned your dying child? Abandoned mom to deal with all of that alone? To have no one?” 

His chin wobbled, just slightly, and his eyes shone glassy before he dropped them to the ground, avoiding her gaze. Jaina felt her resolve waiver, and finally let the anger start to melt. For all that she hated it, she wanted, needed, to have her father back. For what little of her family was left to be whole again.

“I didn’t know how to face her,” he all but whispered, voice hoarse. “I couldn’t stand myself, couldn’t look at her, knowing … knowing I had raised the man who killed her only little girl. I blamed myself, thought she blamed me too. Thought she would hate me if … if you … I didn’t know what else to do …”

He lifted his head and met her eyes, begging her to understand. 

“I thought you were gone, Jaya,” he whispered, “all of you. I thought I had lost all of you and I - I know it was wrong, and I know it was weak, and I wanted to come back every second that I was away, I just didn’t know how …”

His hand came up, tentative, shaking, and slowly reached to cup her cheek. She didn’t pull away, allowed herself to lean a little into the touch; wouldn’t let herself cry. 

Her father looked like he wanted to say more, but Jaina straightened and cut him off. She gestured back towards her waiting X-Wing.

“One of the S-foils keeps wanting to stick when I try to lock it down,” she remarked, “Come with me? You always had a good eye for that stuff.” 

It was a purely conciliatory offer - she knew perfectly well what the problem was, and could fix it inside a quarter standard hour. But the look on her father’s face, the relief, the (albeit wary) happiness, were worth it. He nodded, and followed her toward the craft. 

Things were a long way from perfect, a long way from normal, but it was a start.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a short chapter, but I felt guilty going so long without updating (yay summer class). I'm planning for one more after this to finish the storyline of TFA. I have some ideas for how to finish out the story, but I'm not sure at this point if I'm going to finish yet it or wait for the Last Jedi and adapt.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

It surprised even Jaina when the words popped out of her mouth and she volunteered to accompany her father and Finn to the First Order base. Straight to the heart of the enemy. Straight to Ben-who-isn’t-Ben. But something about Finn’s hesitation, a shaky pulse in his Force aura, had made her wary; he wasn’t telling the full truth, and while her instincts told her he was trustworthy, they also told her whatever he was hiding could endanger the whole mission. 

Her mother looked like she wanted to argue; she had spent the past several years trying to keep Jaina as far away from Kylo Ren as possible. In the end, General Organa just nodded, and so Jaina now found herself sitting in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, a place she had assumed she would never see again. 

It felt like home.

But it also felt broken, because she and Ben and Jacen should have been chasing one another through the halls, her mother yelling after them to be careful, or playing sabacc in the common area, betting with pretzels, or arguing over who got to be copilot (Chewie always won that one, though). Her brothers, her whole family, should be in this ship; it wasn’t the Falcon without them. 

And it certainly wasn’t the Falcon with whatever insane tinkering the half-cocked no-account trash who had stolen it had done to it. Have the system boards weren’t functioning properly, the hyperdrive was sluggish, exposed wires ran everywhere - 

\- Jaina itched to get up and start fixing, make the ship back into the glorious hunk of junk she had been. But she made herself sit, and relax, and try to clear her mind. There were more important things ahead. 

One really shouldn’t tinker with a ship mid-hyperspace jump anyways. 

After sitting still for far too long, fielding Finn’s overly excited questions, stifling laughter at Chewie’s sometimes less than nice responses that Finn couldn’t understand, watching her the corners of her father’s mouth slowly try to lift into a smile that wouldn’t reach his eyes, she felt almost bad at the excitement that coursed through her when alarms started blaring and the Falcon tilted sickeningly.

Fighting the grin splitting her face, she was already halfway through the maintenance access hatch before her father could call her name. She settled herself in the narrow crawlspace, the smell of oil and burning wire and ozone oddly soothing, and - 

\- And oh, what have they done to you, old girl? 

A jumbled canopy of frayed cables looped overhead and underfoot, missing parts and wrong parts and broken parts, and - ; internally (and not so internally) cursing, she set to work, banging tools around just for good measure. If she ever got her hands on the demented sadist who had so carelessly hurt their ship, oh would they pay. Jedi weren’t supposed to go out for revenge, but then, she had never been the best at being a Jedi. 

After a particularly loud and inventive string of cursing (of which she thought her Uncle Lando would have been proud) brought on by some mild electrocution, her father’s voice floated up to her -

“Language, young lady!”

More amused than annoyed, she used a small nudge of the Force to send a nearby wrench through the hatch to lightly whack him on the temple. 

“That is not how we use the Force!”

She smiled, the familiar chide warming her to her toes, reminding her that, far as they still had to go, her father was still in there somewhere. 

She slid the last wire back into place, yanked a useless part out of it’s mismatched socket, and heard her father’s triumphant call as the ship righted itself -

\- And then was tumbling out of the open hatch, saved from hitting the deck hard by her own Force reflexes and Chewie’s ever vigilant ones, his arm snatching for her ankle, catching a lopsided view of Finn’s horror struck face. 

Glancing out the viewport, the cause of his distress was readily apparent - they had come in hot, and were careening wildly through snow-covered tree tops, the ship bouncing, scraping, not seeming to slow at all -

\- Until finally they came to a stop halfway off the edge of a ravine, and Jaina realized she was holding her breath - and released it as a wild, gasping laugh.

Her father turned and tried to scowl at her; and then he joined in, eyes twinkling and bright.

Maybe this was still home, after all.


	7. Chapter 7

Jaina had once gone EV, her X-Wing falling apart around her and leaving her to the vast frozen expanse of space, her flight suit insufficient to insulate against the painful, mind-numbing frigidity of it - and still she was pretty certain this planet was colder. 

The four of them ran through drifting, blowing snow that seeped in over the tops of her tall boots, faces bent against the harsh bits of ice pelting through the air. 

They stopped, slightly shielded by the walls behind them, and Jaina strained her ears to listen as her father and Finn discussed a plan. Somewhere between ‘sanitation’ and ‘we’ll use the Force!’ Jaina lost complete control of her facial muscles and was staring at Finn with a mixture of aggravation, incredulity, and not a little amusement. She hadn’t thought anyone but Jacen could make Han Solo that particular shade of crazy, and it gave her a wistful almost cheeriness. 

Finn and Chewie headed towards the lift, but her father’s hand on her arms stopped her. He looked up at her hesitantly, nervously.

“Kid,” he started, voice low and halting, “...can you?”

She swallowed hard around a knot in her throat, nodded stiffly. She knew what he was asking, even if he couldn’t bring himself to ask it. If it came to it, could she force (or rather, Force) their way in, mind trick the guards and whoever else came their way, pull the information they needed from their heads. Her stomach clenched and roiled at the thought of expending those particular skills; not that she couldn’t, of course. Kyp Durron had been perhaps the most skilled Jedi in this area, and he had ensured his skills were handed down to his apprentice. But it was dangerous, manipulating the minds of others, a use of power skirting on the edge of the Dark Side, and she had come far too close to that edge before. Ever since the assault on the temple, she had used the Force as little as possible, partly to keep herself and her mother and the Resistance better hidden from Ben, and partly because she was terrified to touch that power and be drawn back in - Kyp wasn’t here to pull her back anymore.

But she would do what she had to. Everyone she cared about, everyone and everything left that could hope to save this galaxy, depended on the success of this mission.

So she steeled herself and replied, barely a whisper, “If it comes to that.” 

Her father looked at her, face contorting into something like lightness, and asked more jovially - “Got that lightsaber handy?” 

She rolled her eyes. “Dad, please.”

As she strolled past him towards Finn and Chewie, she could feel her father’s smirk at her back.

**********  
Fortunately, Finn’s own powers of persuasion (and Chewie’s bowcaster) had been sufficient to get them into the base and power down the shields. Now they were on the hunt for the girl, Rey, who had been separated from Finn on Takodana. Jaina added her to the list of reasons she wanted to throat punch her former big brother. 

She allowed her senses to reach out, just a little, searching the base for presences that didn’t seem like they should be there, while simultaneously trying to find Poe and figure out how their squadrons were fairing (and make sure he was alive). She found the dark, angry void that was Kylo Ren, his presence wavering and tumultuous - oh joy. There was another faint, almost familiar - and then it was gone, before she could think too much on it. And there - 

\- A burning, blazing point of brightness in the Force, a presence stronger than she could remember feeling, stronger than either of her brothers’, her uncle’s, perhaps even stronger than Kyp’s had been … 

She motioned for the others to follow her, hurrying down the corridor, letting the Force truly guide her for the first time in years. 

Pausing at an intersection, scanning the corridors with her senses, she caught the edges of her father and Finn’s conversation and suppressed a laugh. Finn wanted to stop, make a plan, find schematics - but looking through the giant viewport in front of her, Jaina squashed the swelling of pride that she didn’t need any of, that years of neglecting her half-finished training had done nothing to diminish her senses. 

She turned in time to see her father spin Finn around, and point to the slight figure climbing across the hangar service bay. Jaina jerked her thumb at the girl, and smirking at Finn -

“That her?”

Her father leaned forward and mock-whispered to Finn - “Tip, big deal - just follow the Jedi.”

She enjoyed Finn’s shocked face far more than she should have. 

**********

The planet was growing colder, the life being sucked out of the small sun, but Jaina scarcely felt the physical chill for the icy clench on her heart, the coldness that emanated from the dark figure that had once carried her on his shoulders, that had taught her how to play dejarik in the cabin of the Falcon, that had held her close as she mourned her twin, and he a baby brother. She hadn’t been this close to him in years, since before he became Kylo Ren, and oh, she hadn’t anticipated how desperately it would tear at her soul, how badly this would hurt. 

She locked eyes with her father, who stood at the edge of the walkway extending across the gaping void of room. Jaina shook her head, just slightly, tears welling in her eyes as she silently pleaded with him, no, don’t go. 

Her father smiled up at her, sad, wistful, and blew her a kiss that melted any last vestiges of resentment and anger she had been holding onto. 

And then he shouted a name she hadn’t dared speak aloud in years. 

The dark figure stopped, turned, and the two men met halfway across the void, bridging a physical gap that could not dream to touch the more significant one between them. She couldn’t hear the words exchanged, could barely feel the edges of conflicting emotion suffusing through the Force. 

And then his face, a face she had once so loved, a face she still loved, if she would let herself admit it, a face that she had truly though never to see again. Tears spilled past her lashes, and she wanted desperately to go join them, but found herself rooted to the small balcony. From somewhere above snowflakes and dim light swirled in, and she was faintly aware of the presences of Rey and Finn in the cavernous room. 

Cold, nauseating terror suddenly washed over her, though little had changed in the room. Faintly, detachedly, she could see the lightsaber in her brother’s hand, watched her father grasp it, saw how this would play out in her head as though it were happening to someone else, as though she were watching a holovid -

“DADDY RUN!”

The ragged scream was torn from her throat before she had consciously decided to speak, not even sure why she was screaming - 

\- And before the words had even fully made it past her lips, the red tip of a lightsaber shot through her father, and she felt the life leaving him, her own legs crumpling beneath her, desperately clutching the railing even as she slid to the floor, body heaving with sobs that wouldn’t escape. 

Her father’s body tipped into the void, and took the world with him.

Jaina stood, shaking, and met the eyes of the darkness that had been her brother. He had the nerve to look almost sad, remorseful, to project that to her in the Force, and her blood boiled. 

She jumped from the rail and landed just in time to see Chewie’s bolt catch the thing in the side, see him crumple - 

\- And then Stormtroopers were swarming, and everything was a violet blur in front of her lightsaber as she tried to fight through her way out of tears. 

They all fell, one by one, and she started towards the walkway and what was left of the only brother remaining to her, when a warm, firm hand clamped around her upper arm, and Chewie pulled her into a side corridor, and then everything around them was rumbling and they were running, stumbling, tripping over debris raining from the shaking ceiling.

Next thing she knew they were running, floundering through knee deep snow, darkness and painful cold pressing in on them, but Jaina hardly felt it, didn’t care.

She doubted she would ever be warm again.


	8. Chapter 8

Chewie took the helm, and Jaina sank gratefully into the copilot’s chair, not trusting herself to actually fly the Falcon at the moment, and wondering how Chewie had the strength. Melting puddles of snowy footprints lined the corridors, the uniform steps and boot treads of snowtroopers, a sickeningly familiar, angry darkness still permeating the air. It made her dizzy, nauseous, oh so angry to think they, he, had violated her father’s ship, her family’s home. 

She desperately shoved aside the tumult of emotion searing every part of her and focused on finding Finn and Rey. By all accounts the two should have beaten them to the Falcon, but they were nowhere in sight. Jaina stretched out in the Force, no longer caring to keep herself hidden, no longer heading any caution in reaching into the power offered her.

Wondering in the back of her mind if she would come to regret that carelessness. 

She found Rey, a burning, shining, white hot light, and with her … 

No. 

With her was the angry pit that was Kylo Ren, spewing a fountain of hate into the Force.

And under that - fear. Fear was perhaps even more dangerous than anger.

New urgency flooded her, to get these two away from him, to get Rey and all that power she was projecting away from him. Jaina guided Chewie, and they circled through the whirling snow, desperately scanning as the planet crumbled beneath them, until they spotted two hunched figures in the deepening drifts, wreathed by burned and broken trees.

Kylo Ren was not one of them, and Jaina didn’t know if she was relieved or angry that she wouldn’t be facing him. 

Chewie ran out to get Finn, deciding carrying him would be faster than Jaina trying to levitate him onto the ship. She released a tense, shuddering breath she didn’t know she’d been holding when he called that they were all on board, and pulled the Falcon up as the ground fell away beneath them. 

She was not at all surprised when Rey dropped into the copilot’s chair, silently going about the tasks of keeping them airborne. 

Several small craft circled in the air before her, and her eyes reflexively found the black X-wing among them. Simultaneously cursing his stupidity in hanging around (undoubtedly against orders) and smiling through tears of relief, she stretched out in the Force, tried to send a message to Poe that they were all accounted for - all of them that could be - and to get the squadron out of range of the planet. Jaina never knew if he actually heard her messages, so she clicked a similar sentiment out to BB-8 to relay, and watched as the X-wings swung as one and followed the Falcon into the blessed swirl of hyperspace. 

**********

It seemed wrong for the sun to shine so brightly when the world had already come crashing down.

Jaina couldn’t reconcile the brightness with the sight of Finn lying broken and unmoving, the cheering with the memory of her father’s lifeless body falling away, the smiles of battle-weary but victorious pilots with the raw pain in her mother’s eyes.

She couldn’t make herself move from the top of the ramp. 

Poe caught her eye, hesitating next to the med vehicle where Chewie had laid Finn - Jaina nodded, told him silently to go, tried to force a reassuring smile; Finn needed a friend right now, and her mother needed her. 

Jaina didn’t think she had ever seen her mother let her emotions play so clearly across her beautiful, regal face. She looked broken, a faraway lostness in her eyes that Jaina had seen only once, when Jacen’s body burned away before them on his funeral pyre. Now she had lost both sons, husband, for all purposes brother -

\- Jaina unrooted her feet, forced herself forward, and wrapped her arms around her mother, holding tight, as she hadn’t since she was a very little girl. She tried to pour as much warmth and comfort and love into the Force as she could, wrap it around her mother, cocoon them both in the soft warm currents, forget the world for a moment. 

After a long, long moment, she pulled back, not bothering to wipe away the tears, still holding onto her mother’s hand, and looked back to the ramp, beckoning with her hand to the saddened, quiet girl behind her. 

“Mom, this is Rey.” 

**********

The rest of the day felt strange, disjointed, unreal. She stood in command, staring at the glittering map before her, whole and complete, leading them to her uncle, and it felt like a dream. None of the hope in the room quite reached her. 

She had walked to the infirmary, Poe’s arm warm around her, to check on Finn, and couldn’t reconcile the motionless figure, the slack features, with the vivacious, energetic boy that had mere hours before charged into the same enemy base he had so recently escaped to save a - friend? - and to save the galaxy. The medics assured them he would recover, but it just seemed impossible someone so full of life could be so still. 

They held a memorial for her father, for all the pilots lost in the battle, and she stood dutifully between her mother and Poe, while voices blurred all around her, faces passed by, music played - she watched it all as though it were a holovid, as though it were happening to someone else. 

She sat quietly in the briefing room as her mother discussed going after Luke; her mother had glanced at her, surreptitiously questioning, and Jaina had given the barest shake of her head. This was not her destiny, but Rey’s, and Chewie would be far better company on the journey anyways. 

And as much as her mother was desperate to find Luke, he was about the last person Jaina wanted to see at this point.

Sleep was the furthest thing from her mind, she knew she would never be able to quiet her thoughts and still her heart and rest. But Poe was exhausted, and Jaina knew he wouldn’t sleep until she at least tried to, so she let him lead her back to their small room and burrow far under the sheets, his arms tight around her. She slowed her breathing, relaxed her muscles, pretended to sleep until she could sense that Poe had dropped off. Jaina watched him sleep, the worry smoothed out of his face, dreams fluttering behind his eyelids; she sent a gentle nudge of comforting thoughts, so the dreams wouldn’t stray to recent events. She snuggled closer for a moment, pressed a soft kiss to his brow, and carefully extricated herself from the tangle of blankets, missing Poe’s warmth immediately, but knowing she wouldn’t be able to settle, needed to move, to do something.

To fix something.

Her feet seemed to move of their own accord, and without really realizing where she was going, she found herself on the Falcon’s ramp, staring into the inky blackness of the cargo bay, waiting for the sound of her father’s cursing and Chewie’s too late warnings and the popping, hissing crackles of malfunctioning electrical systems being pounded with a wrench. 

That never came, off course. Never would again.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, absorbed in trying to undo the damage of years of neglect and shoddy workmanship, when soft footsteps echoed in the cockpit, floating through the open access hatch. Rey’s head popped through the hatch, shy and curious, questioning; Jaina mustered up a smile, nodded slightly.

Jaina fielded a barrage of questions from Rey about the Force, the Jedi, the Resistance, the Falcon, and even gave her a crash course in telekinesis and meditation, two things she could easily practice on her own on the trip. For her part, Rey told Jaina about growing up on Jakku, scavenging for meager portions of what couldn’t be called food, waiting, waiting, waiting. Jaina carefully shielded her own emotions, heart faltering at the horror of this story that the younger woman told as though she were describing a shopping trip. 

The sun was fully up in the sky by the time they finished their work, but the Falcon was back to her full (subjective) glory.

Her father would have been proud.

Jaina went with the rest of the base to see the Falcon off, waving to Rey and Chewie, sending them well wishes for a safe journey. Her eyes were scratchy, limbs heavy and liquid with fatigue; fixing the Falcon had started to mend some broken parts of her heart, given her purpose and focus, and now her mind was slowing down, catching up with the exhaustion of her body.

When Poe suggested a nap before their patrol, she went along gratefully, nestling into a deep slumber, dreaming of a vast ocean, hope cresting on the waves, never quite reaching shore.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! This is just a short chapter, and I hope to have another one up in the next few days. After that updates may be sporadic, as fall classes are starting. Thanks for the patience, and I hope everyone is enjoying!

The place was hot, crowded, loud, teeming with half-drunk bodies that all just wanted a good time; pretty much everything Poe wanted in a bar. Early tomorrow, a team from one of the New Republic star cruisers that had survived the attack on the Hosnian system would be headed their way to rendezvous and deliver a hopefully fully-healed Finn, who had been sent to the ship for medical treatment. In the meantime, he and Jaina could actually relax, take a night off, put the problems of the galaxy far from their minds and pretend they were just two regular people, visitors to this backwater planet out for a bit of sightseeing. 

Well, a bit of drinking, because there was precious little else to do on said backwater planet. 

Jaina slouched next to him in the tiny booth, rolling her mostly empty glass back and forth in her hands, face more relaxed than he had seen it in a long time. There had been no real need for both of them to come on this trip, he could have met the Republic medics and brought Finn back just fine on his own, but he and General Organa had both agreed some time away would do Jaina good. It was why he had insisted they leave as early as they had, so that maybe, just maybe, she could leave the past and all its demons behind for the night.

He didn’t remember the last time either of them had properly slept; Jaina’s dreams had become a nightmare replay of her father’s death, Jacen’s death, the Academy, running on a violent loop until she fought her way screaming out. Days didn’t get a whole lot better - Jaina had always had a temper, but now that temper was manifesting itself in horrifying ways. She blamed herself for her father's death, for Finn's injuries, even if she wouldn't come out and admit it, he knew, and that guilt only magnified every negative emotion. No longer trying to block herself from the Force, but not wholly trained in using it, strong emotions tended to lead to a loss of control. Generally, she tended to break whatever glass was nearby, and while so far it had only been water glasses and a framed holo in his bunk, he and the General were both afraid of where this would lead. They had suggested taking her to Luke, to train with him and Rey - that had been roughly when the glass across the holo had shattered, a jagged line tearing between the two of them that he tried not to think was foreshadowing anything. 

This brief R&R was last resort; he didn’t know what they would do if it didn’t work. 

He was telling some ridiculous story of his academy days, enjoying the smile he had finally managed to coax out of her, letting himself relax further into the sagging leather seat, when the smile froze, and her eyes went glassy, and his ears started ringing with danger. 

With the one name that could bring everything crashing down.

Han Solo. 

The conversation came to him in pieces - smugglers, no good, always get what’s coming to them, swindled everyone in the galaxy - and he was reaching for Jaina’s arm, focused almost solely on getting out of this place - 

But he felt the electric currents pulse through her and drew back, saw in her rigid, vacant, fractured face that she had no idea what was happening, what she was doing - 

Lights shattered across the bar, snowflakes of glass raining down, the crackle of their dying embers blending with the sparks still dissipating from Jaina’s skin. 

Horror washed over her face, taking all the color the drinks had put into it, and she fled - no one looked her way, whether still in shock or by her own will, Poe didn’t know.

And he didn’t stick around to see the aftermath. 

Poe followed Jaina out into the cool, misty night, down to a small wooden boat dock, where she sat, huddled and shaking, hugging her knees to her chest, face buried in her legs. He knelt in front of her, tentatively reaching out shaking hands to grasp her arms, anchor them both.

“Fight it, Jay,” he whispered. “You’re stronger than this.”

“I’m trying,” muffled, thick with tears, but coherent. 

Better. 

Poe pulled her into his lap and held her until the tears stopped. Then he took her hand, pulled her to her feet, tucked her arm into his, and they walked until they were lost in the fog, lost in the winding streets, lost in time and place.

Then they made their way back to a small waterside inn, found a room, and got lost in each other. 

Sometime in the night, Poe woke to an empty bed and felt panic start to seize him before he noticed the small figure, black against the moonlight, curled in the window, deep in concentration over a datapad. He relaxed back against the pillows, but didn’t sleep again until Jaina’s cold feet twined around his calf and her hair was tickling his nose. 

In the morning, the owner of the bar found an anonymous deposit in his accounts, enough credits to more than cover the damage.

**********

The medics were right on time, the small transport ship landing in before them in the open field, just close enough that the wind screwed their eyes shut. When they opened them, it was to see Finn standing at the top of the loading ramp, smiling through the slowly opening doors.

The rest of the day was spent in the blur of hyperspace, and for that little while, it felt that all just might be okay in the galaxy.


	10. Chapter 10

The battle raged, hours spent cramped inside a small, hot cockpit, countless friends burning to nothing in the cold vacuum outside the windows, instinct taking over when his brain was too exhausted to supply genuine thought any longer. For every TIE-fighter that went down, it seemed ten more took its place. Poe didn’t even remember what had started this battle in the first place; it seemed he had just materialized in his X-Wing in the middle of the firefight, dodging lasers and cannons and trying desperately to keep track of the fighters that were left in the fray. Blue leader had fallen at some point, and Poe had turned Red Squadron entirely over to Jaina and taken Blue; it was all he could do not to still try to manage both, though he knew Jaina could handle her squadron perfectly well without him (and would likely resent his interference). 

(He also wanted her back on his wing, where he could actually keep an eye on her, but he knew she would really resent that.)

At some point, he felt the tide start to shift just a bit, saw less of his own people fall than TIE-fighters vaporize into space, let himself ride the surge of confidence and find a renewed energy. He slipped into a rhythm, dodging, shooting, filtering through the comm chatter, keeping his pilots on the edges of his awareness and trying not obsess over Jaina’s. Poe was actually starting to feel good about their chances, to feel as though there was no need to call for a retreat, when a panicked, static-y burst came over the comms - 

“Red Leader, you’ve got a tail!” 

Ziff, who had had Jaina’s wing. There was a click of acknowledgement, and out of the corner of Poe’s vision he watched Jaina’s X-Wing careen into a sickening dive, weaving and ducking, using the other First Order ships and the scattered asteroids in the small belt for cover, trying to shake the TIE-Fighter that was right on her tail.

The TIE-Fighter that, Poe’s shaken brain somehow registered, wasn’t firing. 

He forced himself to shove those thoughts aside, to focus on the battle and on his squadron; Jaina could handle herself. They often joked about which one was the best pilot, but he would never truly put himself up against her - he was certain she would soundly humiliate him. (He did secretly - and not so secretly - enjoy the fact that she had crashed more ships than he had.)

Poe made himself wait a full minute before he scanned the battle for Jaina’s X-Wing again, and noticed that she had lost her pursuer - but that she was hovering, still, the X-Wing floating in space, a sitting duck in the middle of the battle. He opened his mouth to ask her just what the Sith she thought she was doing, when Ziff did it for him.

“Solo, move your ass!”

Nothing. No movement from the X-Wing, no biting retort over the comms, not even a click to indicate that she had heard - or that she was in any shape to respond. 

“Red Leader,” he called. “Red Leader, respond.” 

Nothing. 

Poe’s heart crept up, trying to choke him; being a Jedi, Jaina could take a lot more than most of pilots in terms of G-Force and strain in a cockpit, but she still had limits. Whatever she had had to do to shake the TIE-Fighter may well have caused her to lose consciousness. He was already calling a medical team to retrieve her, when a single, well-aimed bolt of green light struck the X-Wing’s engine, blurring the whole ship from his vision in a bright halo. When he looked back, the X-Wing was still mostly intact, spiraling in a listless, slow arc, no mechanical readings coming from it, but still in enough of one piece to shield a person -

“JAINA!”

And then it exploded in a billowing, fiery cloud, all he could see. 

He didn’t even feel the tear track down his cheek. 

**********

Jaina heard Ziff’s warning a split second before she saw the trailing TIE-fighter, and had lead the enemy pilot on a not-un-fun game of chase through the asteroids, feeling almost giddy and a little victorious -

\- when a voice floated to her inside her head, a sickeningly familiar, impossible voice.

A voice that was supposed to be dead. 

She tried to shake it off as battle fatigue, her exhausted mind playing tricks on her, merely remembering all the dogfights with that voice in her ear; but no, the voice was real, and it was striking hot spikes of panic and fear and the barest thread of hope into her mind. 

She couldn’t concentrate, barely realized that she had stopped flying, that the TIE-fighter had stopped pursuing, that, somehow, he was here, taunting her; here, but on the wrong side. Dimly she heard Ziff and Poe yelling over the comms, but couldn’t muster the brainpower to listen, couldn’t make her hands move on the controls -

A violent crash shuddered along the frame of her X-Wing, flame and sparks crawling across the control boards and taking everything with it. The blaring sensors finally jolted her back to her senses, just in time to feel the pain from the blast, to realize that her arms were pinned, just short of reaching the ejection handle, and that everything around her was perilously close to becoming scrap metal lost to space. She reached out in the Force, trying to grasp for the handle, struggling against the dark waves of pain and unconsciousness making it hard to think. 

The last thing she remembered was the taunting voice in her head, watching the ejection handle deploy though she didn’t have the strength to pull it, feeling the ship dissolve around her and a wave of agonizing cold pulling her firmly into the darkness.

********

Poe stormed down the stark white hallways towards the medical bay, mind hazy and limbs shaking with anger, blood pounding hot against his temples. He knew the anger wasn’t really anger, it was the aftershocks of terror, of thinking the woman he loved had died right in front of his eyes, of having to shove all the emotion down because he had a squadron full of people to be responsible for, of the dizzying relief of hearing the med team over the comms relay that they had retrieved her, alive and stable. 

He shouldn’t be angry at her. He shouldn’t be storming to the med bay to yell at her. He tried to tell his feet to turn around, but they seemed to move of their own will, and he was powerless to stop them. 

The glass doors whooshed open before him, Jaina just on the other side. One arm was in a sling, the other holding an oxygen mask to her face, skin still tinged blue from the cold and lack of air, eyes glassy and unfocused. 

Poe barely registered any of it, couldn’t stop himself from demanding - 

“What the hell was that? What were you doing out there?” 

A medic stepped between the two of them, face stern, “This can wait, Commander.”

But he continued on, the white hot bubbles of anger and fear and frustration escaping through his words. Jaina just stared at him, confusing on her face, but either unable or unwilling to speak. At some point tears had started to leak from his eyes, the shaking traveling from his limbs to the rest of his body. 

Poe didn’t notice the medic signal for someone across the room, didn’t hear them coming, barely registered when hands grasped his upper arms and started to force him towards the doors - 

\- away from Jaina.

The anger was quickly replaced by a sudden flood of terror, and “No, no,” he tried to pull free from the two men leading him out, they couldn’t take him away from her, he needed to be beside her, he had almost lost her and he couldn’t leave now - 

“Jay-” he managed to call through the door before he was shoved to the other side of it and it slammed locked in front of him. Jaina looked up at him through the glass, still dazed, and put down the oxygen mask to raise her shaking hand towards him. 

He pressed his own against the cold glass of the door, drinking in the fact that she was still alive, watching until the medics pulled curtains around and obscured her from his view.

Then he slid down to the floor and let the tears come in earnest.


	11. Chapter 11

He hadn’t wanted to do it, oh how he hadn’t wanted to do it. But this was his job, his duty, and he had to treat her like any other pilot. 

The medics had given Jaina a physical clearance to fly, but Poe wasn’t eager to send her back up, and neither was General Organa. Jaina wouldn’t give either of them a straight answer about what had happened, why she had just stopped flying, stopped responding, before the ship was even hit. This, coupled with her mental state since her father’s death … he knew he should have taken her off long before this. But she loved to fly, and after Starkiller Base, they needed very pilot they could get. 

“So … when are you planning on telling her?” Finn asked, as they stood outside of a ready room, drinking bitter caf and enjoying a weird bit of downtime. Finn was currently pulling guard duty, but he had started training as a medic himself, and free time was even more of an anomaly for him than it was for Poe. 

“Never.” 

Finn shot him a sarcastic look over the rim of his cup, and then his eyes travelled to a spot above Poe’s shoulder. “Good luck with that.” 

Poe didn’t turn, had started wincing even before her voice rang down the hall - 

“POE DAMERON!”

“Or right now,” he muttered. 

Finn ducked into the ready room, face torn between laughter and sympathy, as Poe turned to face Jaina’s wrath. 

“What the hell is this!?” she demanded, thrusting a datapad at him.

“That. Is a datapad,” he faltered. It was a mistake, attempting levity now, and he knew it before the words were out of his mouth. She stopped just short of hitting him with said datapad.

“Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare. Grounding orders!? You’re GROUNDING me?!” 

Poe couldn’t look at her, couldn’t stand to see the tears that her anger wasn’t quite strong enough to burn away. 

“I had to. You know I had to.” 

“Don’t give me that. You didn’t HAVE to do anything. You have no right -”

“Really?” he spat back, feeling his own anger rise. He had no choice, she had left him with no choice, what was he supposed to do, he had to keep his pilots safe. Keep her safe. 

Even if it meant she hated him.

All the fear and doubt and turmoil came spilling from his mouth. “What would you do Jaina? If you had a volatile pilot, a pilot making stupid decisions, decisions they refuse to even justify, who nearly gets themselves killed, could have gotten who knows how many others killed?” 

Jaina had fallen silent, staring at him with wide eyes. He had never yelled at her before, and now he had twice in less than a week. Tears began to sting at the back of his own eyes, and he had to force his hands not to reach out and touch her, hold her, apologize and promise her anything she wanted.

He paused, breathed, “I can’t take that risk. I won’t risk any of my other pilots. I won’t risk you.”

Poe forced himself to turn around and walk away. 

**********

Jaina flatly refused to speak to Poe for the next few days, mostly because she knew he was right and knew she was being irrational and that just made her all the angrier. There was a silent war being waged in her head, of who would cave first, which she also knew was unfair because Poe didn’t even know where the battle lines were. She tried to busy herself elsewhere, make herself useful, but though everyone was painfully polite, she always felt as though she were in the way. She didn’t belong here, in the middle of logistical operations and planning meetings and diplomatic discussion; she belonged out there, in the stars. 

She had been in the middle of what they called the ‘war room’, listening to her mother and Admiral Statura discuss recruitment initiatives, when alarms started blaring. Jaina started upright, looking for her helmet - and then remembered she would not be joining the scrambling pilots. Her mother and the admiral were hurrying off towards command, and Jaina quietly followed, trying not to look as dejected as she felt. There had been a distress call, a First Order attack, and pilots were scrambling, spilling out of billets with feet half in boots, streaming from ready rooms and trying to drain their caf before they made it to their ships.

Jaina spotted a familiar head of dark hair, too long and starting to curl, but still unmistakeable, and she froze, pilots and medics and personnel swirling around her. She couldn’t let him leave, send him out there to fight, not with things still broken and painful between them. 

She swallowed and made herself move forward, silently accepting defeat in their one-sided war. Her hand reached out and tugged at his sleeve and Poe turned, the corners of his mouth wanting to lift up in a smile but for the tension and uncertainty weighing them down. 

They stared at each other, the chaos around them seeming to dissolve, and Jaina realized that he was waiting for her to speak, to make the first move, to decide how this was going to go.   
So she flashed him a signature Solo smirk, one she hadn’t been able to muster in quite a while. “Give ‘em hell out there.”

Poe still didn’t quite smile, didn’t speak; he just tilted her chin up towards him, pressed a lingering kiss to her lips, a kiss that held all the emotion and sentiment that he couldn’t get out just now. He pulled away and stared into her eyes for a long moment, and then hurried after the rest of the pilots.

Jaina stayed rooted to the spot until he was out of sight, lips still tingling and heart fluttering, joy and sorrow and nerves all warring for her attention. She turned and headed toward command in a daze, biting her tongue to keep tears at bay. Her mother took one look at her and frown/scowled, a very classic Leia Organa expression, and Jaina winced. She really should have taken a little more time getting here, made herself more presentable. Her mother had not been as convinced as the medics of Jaina’s wellness, and had been treating her a bit like an invalid since the crash. In truth, Jaina wasn’t in top form and she knew it; she also knew she could probably fool anyone else in this room - except her mother. 

A cool hand wrapped lightly around her arm, comforting and commanding at once. Her mother’s eyes were full of soft compassion, a look entirely motherly and not the least General-y. A look that Jaina knew would make her do whatever her mother said, because she didn’t want to worry her, didn’t want to cause her any more distress than she had already faced.

“Why don’t you go lie down for a bit? You’ve been pushing yourself too hard,” her mother prodded.   
“They’ll be in hyperspace a while yet. We’ll call you when we know anything.” 

Jaina nodded, the idea of sleep suddenly very appealing; she knew there was really nothing she could do, the people in this room were much better suited to the task of monitoring the pilots and the whole situation than she was. Her mother or the Force one would let her know if something was wrong. Yes, she should go sleep for a while. 

Her eyes were heavy as she traversed the corridors back to her room, and she was asleep almost before she hit the pillow, a soft, achingly familiar voice skirting the edges of her awareness before she succumbed fully to a deep, heavy darkness.

It would be the last peaceful slumber she would know for a long while. 

**********

Poe watched the blurry lines of hyperspace swirl through the windshield, letting the familiar sight clear his head, heart feeling a thousand times lighter. Things might not be okay, but they were no longer completely broken. And he was back in his element, comfortable and confident and ready to bring the fight to the First Order. He smiled a little as he pulled the X-Wing out of hyperspace - 

Only there was no fight. No carriers, no fighters, no sign of any disturbance; nothing that would have warranted a distress call. Poe double checked the coordinates as he directed his pilots to keep scanning the planet. Nothing was amiss. He clicked his comms over to call back to command -  
\- and nothing. A burst of static, and then silence. No answer, nothing to even indicate the signal was going through. Through the windows he could see the concerned, bewildered faces of his pilots, see the horrifying realization that was dawning in their eyes. 

It was a set-up. A trap. They had been lured out here, away from base - leaving it all but unprotected. Half of their fighting force had been gone on a separate mission - and most of the rest were here. Poe hastily programmed in the jump coordinates back home, shouting instructions for the others to do the same, and prayed they would make it back in time.

**********

She fought her way up through murky, sluggish, heavy sleep, limbs heavy and liquid, head spinning and eyes blurry. It took a long minute to register that the sirens were blaring, and another to feel the cold shock of fear and panic and danger prodding her through the Force; and yet another to realize neither of these had woken her. 

She managed to grab her lightsaber but didn’t think to grad shoes, and padded barefoot into the corridor, barely noticing the cold, one hand against the rough walls to steady herself. Everything seemed wrong, her brain slowly processing that the emergency lighting was on, that the hallways were curiously empty for the alarms to be crying like they were -

\- and then her bare foot connected with something soft, squishy, slick and wet -

A hand. A bloody hand. Her stomach recoiled as the coppery scent hit her nose, mind reeling in horror and thoughts coming in fractured patches. 

Dead. A young lieutenant, green uniform stained dark with his blood, sprawled across the corridor. There were other bodies along the way, slack and unmoving; Jaina’s mind refused to count how many. She reached towards them, checking for life, finding only cold emptiness. What had happened? How long had the sirens been wailing, how long had intruders been in their halls - and why hadn’t any of it woken her? Why hadn’t she felt anything? 

Jaina stretched out in the Force, looking for her mother, and found a faint, wavering pocket of awareness and life, and hurried toward it. Not her mother, but still someone alive in this mess, someone she might be able to save. The hallways away from the crew quarters were thankfully much more empty; Jaina rounded the corner into command, and nearly fainted against the door. 

Tables, workstations, computer terminals, all of it was destroyed, upended, spitting sparks and throwing the occasional odd holo image into the smoky air. And the people - everyone left in command was strewn about the floor, limbs bent at wrong angles, some eyes glassy and staring. 

A faint groan reached her ears, a flicker of movement on the other side of a large overturned conference desk. She hurried over, gingerly avoiding bodies and sparking terminals, and found Admiral Statura, still somehow alive, though he was weak and wavering and gravely injured. He opened his eyes, stared uncomprehendingly around for a moment before focusing on Jaina. He tried to speak, coughed instead, pushed Jaina’s hand away when she cupped his face and tried to quiet him.

“Run”, he finally croaked, gripping her arm with a ferocity Jaina didn’t know how he mustered when she shook her head, gasped out - “The General. They. Took …”

His hand fell away, eyes closing and head slumping back to the floor. Jaina stood shakily, heart tearing with sadness and utter terror. If the First Order had her mother -

She took the Admiral’s order and ran, bare feet slipping on the cold, blood-slick ground, seeing no one but the bodies scattered through the base, noticing a Stormtrooper here or there, feeling absurd pride that her people had fought back. 

Night air rippled frosty across her skin, cold white stars winking at her through the door, but so many less than their should be - 

Fully outside now, Jaina almost tripped over herself in her haste to stop, to stare in awe at the at once beautiful and terrifying sight.

TIE-Fighters, untold dozens of them, lined in perfect rows across the sky in front of her, inky black and glittering against the dark sky. Through them, she could faintly see the winking lights of a larger cruiser. She felt so very small under the dome of motionless aircraft, frozen as they were. 

The all too familiar sound of a blaster being primed very close to her left snapped her out of her reverie. Jaina slowly turned, quickly assessing the team of Stormtroopers before her, feeling more file in behind, bringing her lightsaber up and igniting it. She readied herself to spring, to fight, limbs still weak but mind determined. 

Until the eerie hiss of another lightsaber being ignited drew her attention up, to the ramp of a craft she hadn’t noticed before, the two presences she hadn’t felt before, the red glow of her lost brother’s lightsaber inches from her mother’s throat. 

Jaina let her own blade die, her arm fall to her side. Felt the sting of a blaster bolt to her shoulder, had just enough time to register a hard crack to her head as she fell, before the world dissolved once more into darkness.   
**********

They did not make it back in time.

Poe stared numbly at the ruins of the base, the medics hurrying to help those who hadn’t been fatally wounded, others sadly recording those who had been before carrying them towards a growing funeral pyre. The number, while still too high (any number was too high) was proving to be less than they had feared. Some had played dead, others had hidden; guards who had been out on patrol had been too far away to get back before the First Order had left. There had also been a lot of others who were not at the base, on assignment elsewhere or out on missions; the Resistance was not yet defeated. Still, the sight of so many friends dead or wounded was disheartening. 

So was the question of how the First Order had discovered the new base. 

Even more gut-wrenching, for Poe at least, was the fact that, though they weren’t broadcasting the information, General Organa was unaccounted for. 

And so was Jaina.

Poe silently helped where he could, trying to stay busy and keep his mind off of the horrifying possibilities. He searched every face, every room and nook he came across, hopes falling with each step. 

He stepped outside, spotted Finn crouching next to a jagged pile of rocks. A bloody pile of rocks.   
Finn stood slowly, clutching a dull silvery something to himself. He spotted Poe, and his already grim features fell a little further, pain flashing across his eyes. He didn’t say anything, just held out the object.

Poe reached for it, hand wrapping around a cold, metal cylinder. A lightsaber. Jaina’s lightsaber. 

The pieces slotted into place in his mind, the fears he had been pushing down coming to aching reality. The First Order had them, had General Organa. Had Jaina. 

He almost wished he had found her dead.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating :(   
> I have written and rewritten and puzzled over this chapter, and I'm still not entirely satisfied with it, but here it is!

Before she opened her eyes, she knew something was very, very wrong.

Her head pounded sickeningly, mind foggy, limbs heavy and bruised feeling. At first she thought it was still the after-effects of the crash, but that didn’t make sense; she hadn’t felt this terrible since the morning immediately afterwards. 

She was on a soft but unyielding bed, nothing like her own billet or even the med-ward, and wherever she was was cold, sterile. Space. 

If she concentrated, she could feel the subtle motion of a huge vessel, teeming presences all through it, a burning, shakily familiar one that seemed to be pressing in on her, but it hurt to try to reach out any further, so she focused on her other senses and cautiously opened one eye.

She was facing a hatched grey metal wall, the bed pressed up against it in a corner of the room. Red lights softly illuminated the walls, but the room was otherwise dark. Imposing, at least from her small view of the wall. Wrong. Everything felt wrong. 

This wasn’t a New Republic ship … 

A wave of cold swept towards her through the Force, and the memories came flooding back even as the door hissed open and the presence poured into the room, panic rising in her throat.

Jaina sat up faster than her throbbing head was prepared to approve of, and the tall, dark figure before her swayed and blurred as she tried to steady herself. A hand appeared on her shoulder, steadying her, surprisingly gentle, and it took longer than she cared to admit to think to shake it off. 

“I apologize,” came a stilted, mechanical voice that couldn’t possibly have ever belonged to the boy she had called brother. “My orders were to bring you in unharmed. The medics assure me you will fully recover, and you should be pleased to know that the disobedience has been … dealt with.”

She stared up at the cold black mask, a thousand things she wanted to say rushing across her tongue - ‘what about that is supposed to please me’, ‘why am I here’, ‘where’s Mom’, ‘stop this nonsense and come HOME’, but all that came out was -

“Take that ridiculous thing off.”

Surprisingly, he complied, and from under the mask came a face that she hadn’t seen up close in so many years; more lined than she remembered, with new scars, sadder and more troubled than ever, pain lurking behind the coldness in his eyes, but still, somehow, the face of the boy who had let her ride on his shoulders when she was tired, who had laughed and joked and played with a certainly annoying little sister, who had picked her up and comforted her and carried her to safety when she had broken her arm at the age of four. 

A face she loved, and now knew she would always love, somewhere deep in her very damaged heart. She couldn’t reconcile this face with the man who had killed her father, betrayed everyone she knew and loved. She hated him and all he stood for, and yet she loved him and missed him and wanted so desperately to reach out and hug him.

So instead she squared her shoulders and blithely commented “You need a haircut.” 

The ghost of a smirk briefly crossed his face, and his eyes seemed almost warm as he regarded her. Jaina felt a flash of annoyance at herself. This was too familiar, too comfortable, too much like old times. She had to keep her emotions in check, even the good ones. 

She may still love her brother, but this monster before her was not her brother, even if he did wear Ben’s face. She had to remember that. 

“What do you want?” she asked, still trying to shake the cobwebs from her pounding head. 

He smiled, and then sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, close enough she could almost touch him. Jaina forced herself not to reach out, simultaneously forcing herself not to shiver and pull away.

“You never finished your training,” he said after a while, voice still placating. “A wrong that we shall seek to right. Leader Snoke believes you will be very valuable to us.”

Jaina snorted. She did not particularly care what “Leader Snoke” thought. She didn’t generally care about what anyone thought. 

“And you honestly think I’m going to cooperate with you?” 

“I do.” Confident, already assured. A sly, creeping, not-quite-smile. “You know that your dear mother was also taken. She is safe and sound, secure elsewhere in the ship. And you will cooperate, if you want her to stay that way.”

“And if you don’t want us to finish what we started at that pathetic excuse for a base.” 

The room seemed impossibly colder; had they really taken her mother to get to her? It all seemed too much, too elaborate, too convoluted a plan - from the first shot that had taken down her X-Wing, to this. A shot meant to disable, but not to kill.

And she hadn’t pulled the ejection handle - someone else had.   
And he was right; she would have balked and chanced her own death, would have stubbornly refused to help him, give in to him; but she wouldn’t risk so many others, whatever was left of the Resistance, her mother, Poe … 

But how could she give in? How could she willingly let him manipulate her and try to turn her. Given her history and the anger joining the pounding already at her temples, it would be far too easy to accomplish. 

The Force presence that she had felt earlier was still there, pressing behind her eyes, but Jaina tried to push it away, both desperate to know who it was and terrified of having an answer. 

She stared at the monster that wore her big brother’s face, willing her own to be a mask of calm, staring him down. 

“I have a surprise for you, little sister. A surprise that might sweeten the deal.”

Her throat closed a little at hearing “little sister”, but she forced herself not to show it. Instead, she directed her attention to the door of her room, to the persistent presence that she now felt just on the other side of it, pulling in tight around herself, breath frozen in her chest. 

The figure that entered was tall, almost as tall as not-Ben, swathed head to toe in violent, bloody red, a uniform she had never seen and hoped to never again see. She let her mind slowly absorb this new information, flatly refusing to allow it to come to the conclusion she knew it eventually would, refusing to reach out and confirm who her visitor was. 

“Your own personal guard,” came not-Ben’s voice, stilted once again behind his mask. “To ensure your … security.”

She could feel the cold smirk behind the mask, and then he was gone, taking the cold presence with him and leaving her alone with a horrific crimson truth she could no longer deny. The tall figure didn’t speak, but reached up to remove the shiny red helmet. Jaina found herself staring into dark, green, impossible eyes, eyes that she had stared at more than she cared to admit in her young life, eyes that she had watched soften in friendship and caring and burn with fury and passion. Eyes she had thought she would only ever see again in her dreams. 

The eyes of Kyp Durron. 

Jaina had never felt so elated and so utterly terrified in her life.


	13. Chapter 13

Jaina was surprised at how easy it had been to slip back into a training routine, how easy it would have been to let her guard down and pretend everything was okay, that she could trust Kyp again, that they were just aboard some anonymous cruiser between missions, that everything in the galaxy wasn’t broken. 

But none of that was true. 

She hadn’t seen not-Ben since she had first awoken on the ship, though if she stretched out in the Force she could sense his coldness nearby. She had not been permitted to see her mother, either, and she knew that Kyp was wise to all of her tricks - no amount of stubbornness would get her through. She took what comfort she could that she could still feel her mother, and that she wasn’t in any pain, just tired and angry and sad. At night she desperately tried to reach out in the Force and see if she could find Poe, but she had had no luck; she hoped it was only that they were too far away. 

Aside from a few serving droid, and the medic who had attended her the first couple of days, she had interacted with no one but Kyp. The few Stormtroopers and other personnel she could feel nearby or that she glimpsed in the corridors didn’t spare her a glance; she had even tried to talk to one of the guards stationed outside her door, to no avail. 

It would have been all too easy to escape. She could have easily manipulated the Stormtroopers into letting her go, could probably have even gotten a weapon from one of them. She knew where the closest hanger was, and was confident she could have bypassed whatever security she came across. Kyp posed a problem, as he was always annoyingly nearby, but Jaina was even fairly certain she could hide herself from him well enough to get to a ship. 

But she never tried, never let the fantasies become any more than that. She had watched the thing with her brother’s face kill her father, and had little doubt he would hesitate to make good on his threat to her mother. And then his threat to what was left of the Resistance.

So Jaina went through the motions, sparring with Kyp, practicing all the skills and tricks that she had let herself start to forget over the years. Kyp tried to talk to her, to act like nothing had changed; and oh, how desperately Jaina wanted to slip into the comfort of that, wanted to let the routine and the act and even the absence of other people lull her into a warm and familiar place. Kyp still felt like Kyp to her; she couldn’t feel the dark and cold in his Force presence, not like she felt from Not-Ben. She could still feel the power rolling off of him, but it was simply that. 

Worse, she felt the tendrils of friendship, peace, truce, the love of a dear friend, reaching for her, calling to her, soothing her … 

But none of it was true. None of it was real. 

So she kept an icy distance, played her part well enough to appease, but no more. She did actually give it her all in training, knowing that every additional skill could only help her. 

But she could never let her guard down. She was angry and confused and utterly terrified, and it would have been all too easy for the darkness to claim her; this time there would be no one to pull her back, and she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to fight it on her own. 

Which, she supposed, was entirely the point. 

She was still confused as to the why of all of it. Why did they want her, and why now? Was is because they knew about Rey, and wanted to try to tip the balance back in their favor? That didn’t make a whole lot of sense though; she knew there had been others who had gone with Ben, though she hadn’t met any of them except Kyp. Kyp would probably tell her, if she asked, but then she would have to talk to him. And Kyp - what the hell was he doing here? She had thought he was dead, was told that he was dead … 

She jolted a little, desperately squashing down her emotions before Kyp, cross legged and meditating on the floor before her, could sense them. 

She hadn’t ever actually been told he was dead. When she had asked, her mother had just shaken her head, expression sad and eyes full of tears, sorrow pouring from her in the Force - but sorrow for what, exactly? Jaina had assumed Kyp was dead, but no one had ever actually told her so … had her mother known? Had that been part of the reason she had tried to keep Jaina on a low profile, wouldn’t let her go anywhere alone? Had she been afraid Jaina would follow, if both her brother and her Master, her oldest friend, had taken this terrible and tempting path? 

Lost in thought, it took Jaina far too long to realize she had lost control of her emotions, that they were spilling over into the Force, that her eyes were wide and staring, jaw slack. That Kyp was probably fully aware of everything that had been going through her head, and was watching her with a calm but calculating smile. He didn’t comment, however, just held out a hand, smile never wavering. Jaina numbly allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, squashing the betrayal rising hot and burning in her throat. What did it matter, now, when everything was turned completely on its head and she could trust no one.

Kyp led her back to her quarters, door flanked by the immutable guards, stopping her just short of walking in.

‘We’ll arrive soon,” he said, voice low and soft. “Rest, while you can. You’ll need it. I’ll be along to collect you.” 

He was gone in a swirl of robes before Jaina could blink. 

**********

Jaina sat on her bed against the wall, eyes closed and arms crossed, fuming. There were a hundred questions she should have hurled at Kyp as he had walked away - not that he would have answered them, but maybe the act of yelling them at his retreating form would have helped. 

Instead she sat , silently making a list of things she was tired of not knowing, growing increasingly angry with each thought, watching the chrono on her bedside table slip through more than five standard hours. 

Where were they going? Why would she need rest? She had been sitting on a spaceship for shedidn’tknowhowlong, and her brief sparring sessions with Kyp hadn’t exactly been taxing, though she also hadn’t held back. May as well hone her skills while in enemy territory. Where was her mother, and when could she see her? Why had Kyp sided with the First Order anyways? What. Did. They. Want. With. Her?

Also, five standard hours was not her idea of arriving ‘soon’. 

And just where in the galaxy were they going that it would have taken this long? Even with blockaded war routes, she couldn’t think of anywhere save the further edges of the unknown regions that were this far out. They probably hadn’t taken a direct route, to further confuse things. Add one more thing to be annoyed about. 

Jaina had just added ‘how do I turn off these infernal red lights?’ to her increasingly petulant list of question, when the door hissed open. Kyp stood framed in it, back in that sickening red armor, only discernible by his presence in the Force. Behind him stood row upon row of Stormtroopers, and moving from the middle of the pack- 

\- A sweep of black robes that sickened her even more than the red. 

“It’s time.” the stilted, mechanical voice informed her.

‘Time for what?’ Jaina wondered, but her words caught in her throat and she mutely moved forward. Kyp held out her lightsaber - well, his old lightsaber, the handle large for her hands, the blade longer than she was used to, the violet of it more red than her own - but it was hers now, inherited from her Master, who had given it up for a blade as sickeningly red as that horrid armor. 

She took the lightsaber without a word (they did not trust her enough to allow her to have it in her possession unsupervised) and briefly considered trying to make a break for it before realizing how hopelessly outmatched she was, between the two tall figures before her and the countless ranks following them. She silently allowed them to lead her down the hall, in a direction she had never gone before, through what looked to be a hanger and down a wide loading ramp, into a cavernous room that radiated such a distressing aura that she recoiled and stumbled, held up by the Stormtroopers at either elbow for a few steps while she trembled and blocked the cold unease from her mind. Something … dark lay deep beneath her feet. An raw, gut clenching evil that had every inch of her awareness screaming at her to run. She looked at the black robed shoulders in front of her, the red ones just a few steps to her side, and wondered how they could stand it. How they were so calm and alert and - upright - with this chill washing over them. Neither of them seemed as far gone as this thing, whatever this was.

And somewhere, faintly piercing through the darkness, a familiar soft warmth.

The walk was interminably long, full of twist and turns and countless identical halls that her brain frantically tried to catalog and plot for an escape route, though the rational side of her knew that was useless. After longer than she had cared to keep track, they abruptly stopped before a set of large, impossibly black doors. No one moved. No one breathed. 

The doors swung open of their own accord, revealing a vast, dark room, falling away on both sides of a narrow walkway. On the other end of the walkway were shadowy figures that Jaina quickly went to work cataloging, insides quaking more than ever. There were several tall figures clad in the same blood hued armor Kyp wore, faceless and menacing. A man stood just at the other end of the walk with his back to them but face tilted in their direction, wearing a sneer that she would have liked nothing better than to backhand off of it. And in the center of the other end of the cavernous room, installed on a tall throne, was a figure that outwardly looked sad and frail.

Inside he made Jaina more afraid than she would ever have cared to admit. She kept her face carefully neutral, throttled the fear before the other could detect it, closed herself in as much as possible. 

She finally let herself focus on the last figure in the room, standing just at the base of the throne, surrounded by red robbed guards. Her mother, face serene and lovely, the tightness in the lines around her mouth the only hint that she was supremely annoyed with the situation. 

Jaina’s heart ached terribly, so happy to see her mother, here and close and unharmed, and alarmed at the fact that she was here, that they were allowed to be in the same room, more surrounded by enemies than they could overcome, even if her brain did continuously try to run the math on how many needed to take down to get to her mother. 

It was foolish, but she felt she had earned a little foolish. 

As they reached the other side of the walk the ranks of Stormtroopers fanned into neat rows, blocking the exit. Not-Ben and Kyp walked forward, and Jaina grudgingly allowed the guards at each elbow to propel her with them, until they stood far too close to the battered but imposing figure on the throne. 

So very close to her mother.

Not-Ben and Kyp nealt before the throne, but Jaina remained stubbornly upright, resisting the force of the guards’ hands on her shoulders pushing her down, using the Force when physical strength wasn’t enough and shoving them both away from her. 

She felt Kyp nudging her in the Force, urging her, begging her to comply, stopping just short of forcing her himself (and they both knew he could). She remained standing, all the anger she had felt since waking on that forsaken ship, all the anger she had stored up since watching her father die, burning through her veins and hardening in her eyes as she locked gazes with the man, thing, entity, on the throne. He regarded her calmly, a mild amusement rolling from him, and made a tsk-ing sound. 

“Well, well, well,” came a low, gravely, sleepy voice. “You live up to your reputation. I have been most eager to meet you, Jaina Solo.”

He leaned forward at the same time Jaina unconsciously rocked back. Was it possible that this sad ruin of a creature was the feared Emperor Snoke? She almost wanted to laugh, but the dark power she could sense emanating from him held her in check, forced her brain to accept this truth. 

His penetrating gaze finished its scrutiny, and he leaned back, settling into the throne with a noise somewhere between a sign and a growl. 

“Now,” he rasped, “prove yourself.”

Jaina’s anger flared into indignation, her face twisting into an angry snarl. “I have nothing to prove to you.” 

“Oh no. Not to me.” His gaze settled just to her left, where Not-Ben had risen back to his feet. 

What? 

“Prove that you have the strength your brother believes. Prove that you have surpassed your Master. Show us where your loyalty truly lies. What choice you would make.”

She stared blankly at the man/thing/entity, mind buzzing to try to catch up to what he could possibly mean. 

And then Kyp’s lightsaber ignited and was arcing toward her; her reaction was all reflex, bringing her own/not her own blade up to meet the strike. The floor cleared around them, and Jaina’s shocked mind barely grasped that this crazy old man meant for a duel between she and Kyp, that Kyp was actually going along with this, that their lightsabers were dancing more ferociously than ever they had before. 

This was an actual fight. This was not practice, not training. Kyp was fighting to win. This realization was dull in her mind, all her thoughts clouded in a haze of trying to survive. Why? What was the point of all of this? To prove her strength? That was stupid; Jaina would have given herself winning odds against anyone in the galaxy, against either of her brothers, her uncle - anyone except Kyp Durron. He was the only one she knew with certainty she was not matched for. Ben knew that. So what strength did he believe she had? What … choice?

She split her awareness between the annoying red blade of Kyp’s lightsaber and the sudden sinking of her heart. 

A choice.

To kill her Master, or disobey this unspoken order.

To choose between Kyp, between taking a life for no reason, and everything else in the galaxy she held dear.

Between saving lives and losing her own soul. 

It would have been easiest to stop fighting back and let Kyp end it; she knew it wouldn’t end though, that he wouldn’t actually kill her. 

He was not meant to win this fight, and everyone in the room knew it.

She felt her mother’s soft presence in the Force brush against her, and all her anger came swelling back, clouding her vision and surging down her arm and through her blade. Kyp smiled wickedly at the new surge in her attack, though it did not reach his eyes - his eyes were a little sad, if she had stopped to consider it.

That smile made all of the anger inside her explode, and before Jaina had time to process what she had done, Kyp was on the ground before her, sprawled with one elbow supporting him, bloody and gasping.

There was a lightsaber in each of her hands.

Jaina stood over him, hot and sweaty, chest heaving, muscles twitching, tears clouding her vision. A burning blade in each hand. Kyp unarmed, vulnerable, at her feet. Pleading with her, begging her, to end it, to get it over with, screaming warnings into her head of what would happen if she didn’t. It would be so simple. 

But it would be wrong. It would destroy her.

And it would never be enough. They would take everything she loved anyways.  
Warring with Kyp’s voice in her head was her mother’s, no words, but just as pleading, begging her daughter no to do it. Not to lose herself. She couldn’t lose her last child.

Love. Over it all, her mother poured her love into Jaina.

The only point of this entire production, the only reason for it, no matter what she chose, was to break her. 

Jaina’s entire body went limp, crushed under defeat and guilt and grief and horror. She deactivated both sabers, letting them fall.

Before the sound of their impact reached her ears, she felt her mother’s presence wink out of the Force. A brief flash of white hot pain, and then - gone. 

Her mother was gone.

Jaina didn’t move, didn’t turn, didn’t breath. Had no conscious thought. 

Around her, every blaster in the room rose from every Stormtrooper’s hand, hovering in the air, rotating slowly towards the man/thing/entity on the throne. The air whined and buzzed with the sound of their charging. Electricity crackled up Jaina’s forearms, but she barely felt it, didn’t know when she had summoned the lightning, didn’t know it’s target.

Didn’t know anything except that her mother was dead and her father was dead and both her brothers were gone -

An inky blackness washed over her, bringing with it the promise of soothing nothingness. All the blasters dropped to the floor at the same moment Jaina herself did. Rough, cool, familiar hands caught her; the last thing she remembered could well have been another memory, of those same hands pressed to her dying forehead in another place, another time, another moment when her world was crumbling.

**********

He waited until the room was empty, save for the two still figures on the floor, before he made himself more corporeal. 

He waited until his sister woke, confused and scared, until the memory and the pain flooded back to her, and she crawled, sobbing ‘Mom?’, across the floor, to the prone body at the base of the hateful throne. 

Watched the other half of his soul curl around their mother’s dead body, crying softly, whispering that it was okay, that she would get them out, that everything would be okay.  
Nothing was okay, and oh what he would give to help her share this pain. To share this burden. To not leave her to her sad journey alone. 

He knelt beside his tiny sister, stroked her hair with his insubstantial hand.

She looked up at him then, brown eyes blurry and weary, but so very familiar, so very his own. Her expression quieted, softened, relaxed. She didn’t speak, just watched him, and he watched her. Neither moved any further, afraid that any action could end this moment, end what time they had to just ‘be’.

Eventually, exhaustion won out and his sister’s eyes drifted closed, her head resting against their mother’s. 

He allowed himself until footsteps sounded just outside the room, and then hid his form again.

A tall man strode into the room, a man he knew all too well, a man who had once been friend, brother, uncle. He wasn’t sure what this man was now. Didn’t know if he knew. Kyp Durron scooped Jaina into his arms, gently disentangling her from the cold body that had once held Leia Organa Solo. He cradled Jaina close, then looked up, into the corner where the other man stood. They locked eyes, though Kyp couldn’t actually see him. Kyp’s mouth opened, eyes lost to sadness for a long moment, and then abruptly closed. He shook his head, turned, and walked silently from the room. 

Jacen Solo slipped quietly back into the cool stream of the Force to go look for his mother.


	14. Chapter 14

She woke slowly, cool Force currents dissipating from around her, rested and calm, swimming up through the warmth of a healing trance she knew she hadn’t put herself in, memories echoing from another life of a familiar, rough hand across her forehead. 

There was a most unwelcome and thoroughly surprising knock on her door - no one had ever knocked, they tended to just barge in. Not that her visitor waited for an answer - or that she didn’t know who was on the other side of the door. Kyp strode through, stance as cocky as ever, face carefully nonchalant, clad in his dark robes instead of that distressing red armour, for which she was absurdly grateful. 

She squashed that feeling quickly, not wanting him to sense anything close to gratitude from her. 

Especially not when she was beginning to realize …

“You made them think I was dead,” she whispered.

Kyp studied her, a mildly puzzled expression on his face. 

“The temple,” she continued, voice low and raw. “I was injured, I should have been dead. You put me under. Deep under. They thought I was dead.

“That’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

Kyp still didn’t speak, but there was a flicker of some unreadable emotion in his eyes, a slight softening of the lines around his mouth. And something else … 

“Why do you think I’ve done any of this?” Kyp finally answered, voice painful and soft, eyes pleading. “Jaina, I … “

He stopped himself, took a moment to regain his jaunty composure, and smiled lightly at her. “Feeling well enough to get up?” 

She glared at him. How could he possibly think that she was in any mood for this ridiculous ‘training’ regimine, for pretending that everything hadn’t been completely upended, destroyed; did he honestly expect her to continue to play along?

Her mouth opened to start spewing retorts, but he smoothly cut her off. “No training. Something fun. An … excursion.”

There was something urgent in his tone, his aura, that made Jaina get shakily to her feet. Feet shoved in boots, jacket shrugged across shoulders, a lightsaber that was not hers but was comforting and familiar clipped her her belt. She followed her Master, her friend, this man who had once known her better than anyone but that she had never figured out, out of the room and down a series of unfamiliar corridors. 

They passed few people, the halls eerily silent, an oppressive air settling cold around her shoulders. 

And then a beacon of white hotness pulsed through the Force, a wild and only slightly more tamed power that made her steps falter, her feet stick to the floor, brain trying to piece together this uncomfortable collision of worlds. It had been so easy to think of this entire experience as happening somewhere else, to someone else, to pretend that it wasn’t really a part of her life, that it was a dream. 

But this unexpected visitor from another time into her nightmares made the full reality of crash down over her. Kyp’s sudden grip on her wrists kept her up and moving forward, brought with it memories of another hallway in another ship in yet another life long before either of these. 

“Kyp, stop, we have to go help-”

“No.”

A simple, small word, but so harsh in her ears, leaving no room for argument, yet somehow desperate and pleading. 

‘We have to go.’

These words spoken only to her mind, so tempting but so wrong, she couldn’t leave, she had to help Rey, had to get her out of here, why was she even here in the first place …  
And if she was here … where was Uncle Luke. 

Jaina pulled against the grip on her arm, tried to shove Kyp off with the Force but he had already braced himself for it, and then -

‘GO’!

The word was shouted into her mind, flooded with fear and panic and uncertainty and a strange bit of warmth, carried on a connection she hadn’t felt since - 

Ben.

It came from Ben. 

Not Kylo Ren, but from Ben.

The shock of it all left her vulnerable, distracted and unprepared, and Kyp had always been stronger than her, physically and - persuasively. 

She came back to herself in the confines of a Stealth X cockpit, her Stealth X cockpit, the lines of hyperspace swirling outside, Kyp’s voice cycling a soothing rhythm of words through her mind.

I’m sorry. Don’t freak out. He’s gone. It’s over.


	15. Chapter 15

Don’t freak out.

Don’t freak out.

Don’t. 

Freak.

Out.

She wanted to, oh how badly she wanted to be able to completely lose herself, rage and yell and scream, let all of the pain and fear and anger and tumult out of herself before it consumed her.

Instead, she stared numbly at the empty, abandoned shambles of a base. She didn’t know why she had wanted to come back here. She knew she wouldn’t find anything, that they would have been smart and run. But to where? There were other bases, old and disused from Rebel times, and contingency plans in place for running to them. She didn’t know where to start, which one they would have gone to. Or who was left to lead them. But she had needed to come back, to see.

Kyp hadn’t argued, hadn’t questioned, had simply followed her. He now stood some distance away, face inscrutable and Force aura even more so, hands in pockets and staring at nothing in particular. 

Why do you think I’ve done all this?

Jaina wouldn’t let herself ponder the question, didn’t want to know why. To save the galaxy? The Jedi Order?

Her? 

She shook herself. She was supposed to be not pondering the question. 

Instead, she let her gaze wander back to her Stealth X, let her heart leap a little at the prospect of flying it. Let herself ask a safer question.

“Why?” gesturing to the craft.

Kyp turned to her slowly. “The stealth tech. We thought the Empire would want to study it. They didn’t care, with the Jedi gone.”

He met her eyes.

“We also thought it might make a nice peace offering. If you ever decided to join us.”

The last was wry, sad almost. 

Apparently everyone had expected her to run to the darkness. 

Jaina didn’t have the capacity for any more thoughts; she wanted to fight, to fly, to run, to find whatever was left of her friends, to …

She twisted the silver band around her finger, fire glinting across the violet stones set in it; stones Poe had picked because they matched her lightsaber, and fought back tears. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, knowing there was no way he could hear the sentiment. 

She wouldn’t be going to find him. Or any of them. Not just yet. There was something she needed to do first.

***********

Kyp had argued with her on this one, but Jaina had won out; he apparently had forgotten that she usually won out, when not under the thumb of evil. 

When the Stealth X’s touched down, Jaina wondered if maybe Kyp hadn’t been right, and this whole thing was completely crazy. She swallowed down the taste of bile and jumped softly to the ground, looking around the docks toward the center of the domed city. She steeled herself and started forward, in the direction of a tavern a few well-placed credits in the hands of discreet contacts had directed her to. She could feel the annoyance coming off Kyp as he followed her. Jaina had told him to stay behind if he wanted, to go into hiding; but here he was, a silent and agitated sentinel. She didn’t know if he was more annoyed at her actual plan, or at the fact that, though he wouldn’t admit it, he felt a little replaced. 

Jaina did truly hate making him feel that way, but Kyp had taught her all he could; there were other skills she needed to learn.

The tavern was dark and hot and sticky, loud and overflowing with the least-reputable beings the system had to offer. Her father would have loved it. 

She didn’t need to seek the man she had come to see. A small band of what she could only think of as ‘lackeys’ sought her out before she made it very far in. Apparently her contact weren’t as discreet as she had hoped. 

I kind of made her feel closer to her dad.

They lead her and Kyp toward the back of the tavern, through a dark, cloth and bean shrouded doorway, and towards a man lounged in a chair in the back of the small, dim room. His face was one she would never forget; when someone kidnaps you, it tends to leave some imprints. 

The man’s head slowly raised, his eyes scrutinizing her, the hint of a wry, suspicious smile on his face.

“Well, well, well,” he muttered. “You’re the last being I ever expected to darken my doorstep.”

They stared at one another, neither relenting, and Jaina realized it was her turn to speak a heartbeat after the man started again.

“Why are you here?”

Deep breath.

“I need training. So I came to you.”

Pause. Snort of laughter.

“I am no Jedi, child.”

“No,” Jaina gestured back towards Kyp. “I have one of those. I am one of those. That isn’t the kind of training that I need.

“I need to learn how to kill a Jedi. I figure there’s no one in the galaxy better at that than you.”

She felt the jolt of shock from Kyp at her words before he suppressed it. Felt the warning he sent to her and ignored it.

The man smiled, rose languidly from his chair, and walked towards her, stood so close she had to bend her head nearly straight back to look up at him.

And then a swift, blunt-force, breath-stealing pain flared across her abdomen and she was on her knees, coughing, mentally cursing Kyp for the mixture of amusement and anger coming from him. 

“Lesson one, little Jedi,” Boba Fett knelt next to her and whispered near her ear, “trust no one.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for how long updates are taking! School, work, life, all that. I've also had a bit of a block lately. I know where I want to go with this, but I'm struggling to get there. Anyhoo, it's summer break now, and I hope to have this finished by September!

Jaina didn’t know what she had expected from this. She couldn’t even have said why she had been compelled to come here, except that she was compelled. 

Why hadn’t she gone to her uncle? She was reasonably confident she remembered enough of the map to at least get close, maybe close enough to feel out his presence and find him from there. It would have been the logical thing, and after feeling Rey’s presence before they had escaped, she certainly had been concerned and sorely tempted. She had been even more tempted to scour every possible Resistance hold out and Republic-friendly system, planet, town, ship she came across until she found her friends and was snuggly back in Poe’s arms, the only place she wanted to be, the only place she was sure she even belonged anymore. 

But something, some feeling, some bizarre intuition had brought her here. 

Kyp hadn’t cared for that as a response, but he still played along. 

As he should. She had played his games long enough, he could return the favor a bit. 

At least the brutal ‘training’ regimine Fett kept her under left little time for her own thoughts to creep in; she was usually even too exhausted to dream. She was learning, though. Not how to fight, necessarily, but how to not fight like a Jedi. How to wage war. How to let go. 

She also found herself (and Kyp) being quickly adopted by the Mandalorians, and she was sure her father was as happy about this in his afterlife as Kyp was in his reality. 

Kyp had also warily consented to help her learn some of the less savory techniques he had picked up on during his ‘dark times’, as she had dubbed them when still just a child. He wasn’t thrilled with it - he wasn’t thrilled with any of this, but she had managed to convince him of the necessity. 

“You know what he’s become,” she had told him. “You know I have to be able to do this.” 

She could feel the conflict in him, but he had agreed, hadn’t held back. 

Hadn’t been quick enough to hide the fear and sadness that pulsed off of him when she first asked. 

***************

“Why are you doing this? Snoke is dead.”

“He’s not the one I’m planning to go after.”

“Kylo - “

“Ben. His name is Ben.”

Kyp hesitated. “I’m not going to say that there’s nothing of Ben left. But there isn’t much, Jaina. I don’t know if there’s enough.”

“He let us go.” 

“We don’t know why. We don’t know why he killed Snoke.”

“We don’t know THAT he killed Snoke.  
“And he let us go.”

Kyp had no argument after that. Ben, Kylo Ren, whoever he had been in that moment, he had let them go. Kyp told her he wasn’t certain what had happened on the ship to cause this shift, why Rey was there, why Kylo Ren had been Ben again for a time, what transpired to bring about Snoke’s end - and Jaina had believed him. Kyp was an excellent liar - but not to her. He could never successfully lie to her. 

So he sat in silence, watching as she tinkered with his old lightsaber, trying to make the grip more comfortable for her considerably small hand. He could feel the turmoil and sadness emanating from her, but she had closed her mind enough that he couldn’t sense any more than that, couldn’t dig down and find a cause. It tore at him, her sadness, mostly because he knew how much she hated it and how much she would hate his pity. 

He knew she wanted to ask him about his wearied declaration, what he had meant when he had asked her ‘why do you think I’ve done any of this?’, and that bald stubbornness held her back. 

He had wanted to keep her alive, back at the temple so many years ago. Had wanted to save the daughter of the man who had saved him, this girl he had trained, had watched grow. Had believed she might be the last hope for the galaxy, if he wasn’t able to pull Ben back. He wondered if she had realized that, that he had only gone over to the First Order in a desperate attempt to reign Ben back in. That he had gone because what good was he dead? Because if they had killed him, he doubted anyone would have hesitated to finish Jaina off, and that was enough of a reason to make him go. He hadn’t wanted his old friend to lose all of his children, hadn’t wanted all the promise and talent and wonder he saw in Jaina to be extinguished. 

Once, he would have said he loved this girl. Loved that fire, that spirit, that determination. And he still did, in a way, just not in the vein of youthful arrogance he once had. He loved her as a friend, a comrade, as the last person in the galaxy he trusted. 

After a long while, he said, soft and low, so quiet that he wondered if he had actually spoken out loud,

“It doesn’t have to be you.” 

Her head snapped up, eyes startled but fierce, jaw set in defiance. This was his favorite Jaina. He understood this one. 

“Of course it does.”

She swallowed, looked back down at the lightsaber in her hands. 

“No one else will do it for the right reasons.” 

Kyp waited, silent, still.

“I love my brother. So I have to stop the evil that has him trapped.” 

She raised her eyes, still fierce, now damp around the edges. “I have to do this. For the galaxy. For all of us. For Ben.”


	17. Chapter 17

Kyp Durron stood under the cool night stars, wondering if he was having an out of body experience, or if he had completely snapped this was just a delusion, or if one of these cursed people had finally killed him and this was his afterlife penance. Because why kriffing else was he currently attending the wedding of Boba Fett’s daughter.

He was still puzzling over this, trying to pick out constellations he knew to make certain that he was still in the same galaxy, when Fett stepped up beside him, turning his own head up at the stars. While the others may have welcomed them, Fett seemed to have merely tolerated their presence, and while he had ‘trained’ Jaina, in as much as Kyp could call it that, Kyp still fully expected the man to try to slit their throats in their sleep. 

So, when Fett spoke, Kyp was taken aback by the softness in his voice.

“I have done all that I can,” Fett murmured, still looking at the stars. “The little Jedi is as ready as prepared as I can teach her to be.”

“Anxious to be rid of us?” Kyp tried to make it light, but he was certain some hostility had crept into his voice. 

Fett smirked. “I fear you will be needed elsewhere very soon.

Kyp’s spine prickled, and he reached out cautiously, trying to discern some emotion from Fett, some flicker of what he meant across his features. Nothing. Fett just calmly looked back towards the warm light of the wedding party, an almost smile on his face. Kyp looked up just in time to watch Jaina use a little Force nudge to pop the corks on a line of champagne bottles simultaneously, to see the delight spread through the crowd - to see a thin, genuinely happy smile twist Jaina’s lips. 

Part of him wanted to stay here, in a place removed from war and horror, a place where she actually smiled, with people who were living normal lives. 

But this wasn’t their place. And whatever intuition was telling Fett they needed to go, Kyp was only too happy to oblige. He turned sharply, shook the older man’s hand, and headed away from the party, to pack the meager belongings he and Jaina had accumulated in their time here. 

**********

By the time Kyp had stowed their belongings in their craft and was heading back toward the wedding party, the guests had all dispersed, some running in terror, some looking ready for a fight. Cold danger had been prickling along his nerves since his talk with Fett; now it hummed loudly in his brain, insistent and urgent. He scanned the crowd frantically, until he spotted a head of dark hair shoulders shorter than the rest, and ran, grabbing Jaina’s arm with one hand and his lightsaber with the other.

“What?” he demanded.

Jaina shook her head. ‘No idea’, whispered in his mind. 

Fett materialized next to her, one large hand gripping her shoulder. “Go, little Jedi. Your fight is not here.” 

Jaina stared at him, as hot, gritty wind whipped across their faces, comprehension slowly dawning across her features and in Kyp’s mind. The First Order. They were here. But why? 

“Maybe we can draw them away,” Kyp murmured to her, knowing she wouldn’t want to run from this fight. “We’ll be of more use up there. This isn’t a coincidence; it will only be worse for them if we stay.”

Jaina never took her eyes off Fett, the older man’s face as eerily grim and determined as hers. Slowly, too slowly, she nodded. She reached out and grasped Fett’s hand in both of her own, just for a moment, and then allowed to Kyp to pull her away from the stunned, mildly amused, mildly saddened man. 

They ran, disappearing into the swirl of Mandalorians readying themselves for battle, towards their waiting craft, and what Kyp feared might be their final fight. 

**********

As much as it pained Jaina to admit, Kyp had been right. They left their comm channels open, hoping the First Order would pick up the signal and come after them. She hoped it would be enough to draw the entire host away from Mandalore, but part of her knew that was futile. The First Order hadn’t come just for them, and she knew it. They hadn’t launched a single fighter, nothing to give any indication they were interested in the two fighters except for their steady course towards them. 

She was in the midst of a mental argument with Kyp about when would be the best time to jump to hyperspace - Kyp in favor of getting out of there (two Stealth Xs aren’t much against a star destroyer and squadrons of TIE-Fighters, Jaina), she not wanting to abandon the people who had hosted them and adopted them so quickly, wanting to give them more of a chance - when he cut her off, and all she felt from him was intense concentration and then -

“Do you feel that?” 

She stretched out, and felt, presences, pinpricks of beings through the Force, different from those pursuing them -

And an achingly familiar and long lost voice crackled across their comms. 

“It’s about time the two of you found your way back. Form up. Let’s see if you’ve still got it.” 

She could feel Kyp’s smile. “Roger that, Commander Darklighter.”

Jaina found herself staring at a New Republic frigate that her distracted brain hadn’t bothered to distinguish before, and at the long lines of fighters now pouring from its belly. Was this why the First Order was here? Had they actually been heading towards the frigate the whole time, and she and Kyp were just conveniently on the same path? The frigate was dark, and Jaina could feel frantic scrambling from inside it, personnel desperately working to fix whatever was going wrong, and the First Order was closing fast. 

Gavin Darklighter’s voice, at once familiar and alien “That would be ‘Admiral’ Durron,” and Jaina smiled her first real smile in what felt like months. She swung her craft around to form up on the end of a V of fighters, noting the Rogue symbol painted on them and feeling something dislodged in her start to settle. This was by no means a happy method of reunion, the galaxy was still upside down, her life was in shambles, but for just a little while, she could forget everything, let her instincts take over, and go back to what she did best.

Fly. Fight. Win. 

**********  
And win they had. 

Or, at least, Darklighter had some brilliant mechanics who had gotten the frigate back online and they had all made a coordinated jump a few light years away. 

Not dead = win. 

She was going to count it.


	18. Chapter 18

Sleep. Wake to alarms. Feet in boots, flight suit, helmet. Briefings. Fight/flight. Sleep. Shower. Training. Meetings. Sleep.

Poe hated, hated, hated, how perfectly normal his life felt. The routine of days, broken by the occasional battle. His life, just as it had always been. 

The fleeing Resistance had met up with the reforming pieces of the New Republic, the forces absorbing into one another, their unity no longer kept secret. The New Republic had no pretense of peace and neutrality to keep up, after the attack by the First Order. 

They weren’t quite strong enough to wage all out war, either, but they were giving it their all. The rumors of Snoke’s death had reached them; true or not, the First Order continued their relentless assault of the galaxy, and the Resistance and New Republic pounded back, but while they had been able to hold off attacks and defend themselves, they weren’t capable of any outright assaults to try to take out the First Order - or to find any captives. 

General Antilles himself had come out of a well-deserved retirement to command the cruiser Poe found himself on, and while his legendary presence seemed to boost the morale of those around him, Poe still felt like he was going through his days in a fog. Mechanical. Bordering on apathetic. 

How dare his life feel normal when his soul was ripped in half. 

He tried to push away the panic, the anger, the fear. Mostly, it worked, mostly. As long as he was busy, and around his friends, focused on the task at hand, he could let the normal creep in and wear it like armor. He could banter, laugh, smile, maybe not as loud and genuine as before, but enough. It was when he was alone, failing to sleep despite his exhaustion, that the loneliness and pain came skipping back in to prod at this heart. 

There had been no word, no demands, nothing. Much of the Resistance (and the New Republic) had accepted Jaina and General Organa as dead. Poe refused.

But he couldn’t know.

The not knowing was the worst part. 

**********

The General and most of the officers were several decks above him, greeting the crew of a damaged frigate that they had rendezvoused with for repairs. Poe knew he should be there, not only as an emissary of the Resistance but because the flurry of faces and activity would engage his brain right out of the funk he had been in all morning, since he had woken up and found himself staring at a broken lightsaber he had stupidly left on his side table after failing at his billionth attempt to repair it. He had wanted to fix this one thing, to make it better, to have this piece of Jaina whole, to be able to give it to her when she came back. Because she would. She would. 

He really didn’t feel like crawling out of his funk. He was afraid he would start to forget.

So he walked slowly through the hanger where his X-Wing sat, BB rolling quietly alongside him, on the pretense that his fighter needed work. It probably did, but the cruiser was crawling with mechanics far more skilled than he. He just wanted his hands busy, wanted the smell of oil and machinery, a smell he had associated with Jaina for so long. Maybe, just maybe, this would make him feel a little closer to her. 

He had let himself get so lost in his own thoughts of happier times under the belly of an X-Wing that he didn’t notice the strange craft until BB stopped and whistled appreciatively. 

They looked like X-Wings, but not like any X-Wings he had ever seen up close. These were smaller, sleeker versions, flat matte black, solid but for small star-flecks of white. These couldn’t possibly be … His brain was in curiosity overdrive, and he would have all but climbed in the craft, had his mind not seized on what should have been an insignificant detail. An insignia, raised against the side of the craft, the same matte black - the same insignia he had traced on Jaina’s Rogue Squadron jacket every night since she had been gone. 

Stealth Xs. Two of them, sitting here in this hanger, still smelling of recently burned fuel. Craft that were all supposed to have been lost in the Jedi Temple assault. Craft built only for Jedi. 

He was still desperately grasping at the meaning of all this, sick from the possibilities, when he felt a soft tug at his mind. A nudge. A whisper. 

In that moment he let himself admit he would never feel her calling to him again. 

Under the insignia was painted a curving black “9”.

BB8 beat him out of the hanger, but Poe was close behind the little droid, racing up decks towards the formal conference room where General Antilles would have taken the visitors.

He stood outside the door, breathless, heart racing, hand hovering above the release pad, completely and utterly terrified that he would open it and find himself wrong. 

The door hissed open seemingly of its own accord, and Poe found himself staring at a tall, grim man in a dark flight suit, hand still outstretched. 

Who the … ? 

A microsecond later he no longer cared who this man with his telekinetic door-opening powers was, because the slight, dark haired figure next to him had stood up, looking as dazed and breathless as he felt. The rest of the galaxy ceased to exist. He didn’t register the room full of high ranking personnel, didn’t see the sad smile on Wedge Antilles’ face, didn’t pause to wonder that there was somehow another Jedi in the room. All he knew what that somehow, impossibly, Jaina was here. 

Before he could move she had sprinted the length of the room and launched herself at him, legs tight around his waist, face buried in his neck. Poe held her to him, nestled his face in her hair, tasted the salt of tears he didn’t realize he had started to cry.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the ridiculously long update time - it's an extra long chapter, so hopefully that will help you forgive me! I really wanted to write battle scenes, but, well, I can't, so I'm trusting all of your wonderful imaginations!
> 
> Only one more regular chapter and the epilogue to go!

Weeks of planning, preparation, drills, training, briefings, battles, amassing an armada, calling in favors (and a few threats and blatant blackmail), had lead them to the eve of battle. Recon teams and some hard-earned intel from First Order sympathizers had guided them to a stronghold, an edge-of-the-galaxy moon around which the First Order’s fleet, and all of its power, were concentrated. The plan was simple - get in, blow stuff up, get out.

They all knew execution was never that simple. 

Poe knew Jaina was never that simple. He also knew he stood no chance of winning an argument with her, of changing her mind. She had her own plan, and she would see if through if it killed her.

He was terrifiedly confident it would kill her. 

“Can you win this?” he had whispered, deep in the dead of night, arms tight around her, the rest of the galaxy locked out of their snug cocoon. 

She had been quiet for a long, long time. 

“Maybe not,” she finally admitted. “But neither can he.” 

That wasn’t the answer he had wanted, and he had little doubt that ‘he’ could, in fact, win this. Poe had stared the man in the face - well, in the mask - and he had felt the raw, encompassing anger and power that roiled from the man. Not once had he ever felt that kind of hatred from Jaina. 

So he had gone to talk to Kyp Durron, a man he had only thought existed in stories, a man he hadn’t been prepared to get along with and agree with as much as he had, and posed the same query. 

“Can she win this?” 

Kyp had stared at him, thoughtful, as if weighing how much of a truth to tell him. 

“She can,” he replied, apparently deciding on the actual truth. “It’s a question of ‘will’. Does she want to win this.” 

Poe had liked his reply even less than Jaina’s. 

But he kept their secret, knowing command would never approve of sending the two of them in, that his was to be a battle won with ships and pilots, not Jedi on the ground. But Jaina and Kyp had both believed that it wouldn’t be enough. That they couldn’t be sure of taking down the First Order leadership that way, and that as long as one man remained standing, it would never be over. 

“It doesn’t have to be you, Jay,” Poe had told her, and in the darkness he could barely make out a wry smile crossing her lips. 

“It does, though. No one else will do it for the right reasons.”  
**********  
So here they were, ranks of starfighters, New Republic, Resistance, private army, snug in the cockpits of their ships as the carriers hurtled through hyperspace, on their way to what they all hoped would be the last battle of an undeclared war. 

Jaina and Kyp had someone how won out against Antilles and Darklighter - and Poe was still impressed by this, as they had insisted it had been a fair (read: non-mind-manipulation) argument - in the battle to use their Stealth Xs in the fight. The craft were fast and all-but undetectable, but only so long as no one used the comms, which was a significant disadvantage command didn’t approve of. The argument had been that they could still communicate with each other, slip in and attack unseen while the enemy was paying attention to the rest of the forces. 

The real reason, Poe knew, was that they could slip in unseen by their own side as well. 

He stared at Jaina, parked next to him in the hanger, imprinting ever curve and line of her face to his memory, convincing himself it wasn’t the last time he would see her. She must have felt the weight of his gaze, and looked up at him, pausing in a final pre-flight check. 

Her face transformed into a wide, mischievous smirk. All Solo and particularly Jaina. 

She blew him a kiss as the hangar bay doors released, and fighters began to spill into the blackness of space.  
**********  
It was a nice feeling, being the aggressors for a change, being the ones to go after the First Order and actually have the element of surprise. Jaina wanted desperately to stay in this place, cocooned inside the beautiful craft she never thought she would fly again, in her element, her second home among the stars. But all too soon, she saw their opening. She sent a quick thought to Kyp, transmitted an image, and saw his Stealth X bank alongside hers, the two of them barreling through the fray, cloaked in their tech of their ships and in the fiery battle raging around them, and slipped through a hanger door that had just finished unloading a stream of TIE fighters. 

There was little doubt some sort of surveillance had noticed their entry, but no guards or squadrons of Storm Troopers swarmed out to meet them. She and Kyp skirted through the halls, both reaching out tentatively, searching for the seething void in the Force that was Ben-and-Not-Ben. 

Except she didn’t find him. Not really, not what she expected. She found - Ben, still angry and seething and tumultuous, but the tumult - it was different, wary, uncertain. Almost remorseful. 

She saw her own confusion on Kyp’s face as he turned to look at her, the question forming on his lips- 

-when a set of doors across the hanger hissed open, and two perfect lines of blood-red cloaked Imperial guards marched in, eerily calm, silent, evenly paced. 

Jaina felt Kyp stiffen next to her, face setting into serene, steely resolve. He slowly raised his lightsaber in front of him, his old lightsaber, back to it’s silvery violet. Kyp had been one of these guards, in what now seemed like another life. 

Jaina started to raise her own blade, but Kyp shook his head. She felt a rush of warmth flow over her, love and respect and tenderness, the way an uncle or a big brother might express, and tears welled in her eyes.

“This is my fight,” Kyp murmured. “Yours waits further on. Go.” 

Face tilting down to smile at her. “Master Solo. Save what’s left of us.” 

It wasn’t in any way proper, but as they were likely the last two even semi-practicing Jedi in the galaxy, the sentiment meant a lot. Jaina started to shake her head, but Kyp ran toward the advancing guards. 

He was right. Her fight lay further in the base. If she died here, everything would be for naught. So she swallowed the guilt, the horror, sent Kyp one last rush of emotion in the Force, and ran. 

This time, she did feel it in the Force when he died, a knife straight through her heart. 

**********  
He felt both their presences before they had entered the base. Knew why they were there.

Almost welcomed it. 

Han Solo’s death had been a blow, more than anyone knew, but he had rallied. He had only done what he had to do, after all.

Leia’s death … it had been unnecessary. He had never had any hope of turning Jaina. Knew that she would run the other way, that Snoke’s plan would fail. No matter that she had tasted the darkness first - there was too much light and stubbornness and determination in her. 

She wouldn’t turn just to prove everyone wrong. 

Leia’s death had broken something inside him. Seeing Jaina in pain had broken something inside him.  
Or maybe it had awakened something. He had known what Kyp meant to do, and he hadn’t balked. Had helped them, even. 

And then the girl had come back to him, and he thought maybe this was the path he was meant to be on. He could train her, and they could rule the galaxy.

But the doubts kept creeping in, searing holes in the mask of detached anger. Leaving him with nightmares and regrets and sadness. 

Kyp Durron’s death might have been the final nail in his resolve. 

He wondered, if he could go back, how differently he might have handled things.

No matter now.

Time to go meet his sister.

**********  
Jaina walked slowly through the ship, skirting personnel and Stormtroopers in the halls, calling to memory the layout the scouts had relayed to them, reaching out to find empty rooms, feeling for Kylo - Ben - her brother - him - the presence was flickering and tumultuous, and coming to MEET her. 

What? 

Well, at least it would make her own search a little easier. She could get this over with. 

Deep in the belly of the base, she reached out to open a nondescript door, found herself in a cavernous half-finished room criss-crossed with catwalks and doors set into open air. The room was barely lit, and Jaina couldn’t make out how far down it went, though the ceiling was not far overhead. 

The door across from her slid open, just as she knew it would. 

Black cloaked and unmasked, he stood across from her. 

Waited. 

Jaina stood her ground, but she would not make the first move. He would have to decide how this would go. How this would end. 

A flare of anger crossed his eyes and burned across the space that separated them. 

Kylo Ren launched himself at her.

**********

The controls were familiar and haunting under his hands. He was alone, hurrying through space, knowing it was too late to make things right for himself; only hoping that he might be able to save the future. 

He could feel the fear and sadness and pain and anger and exhaustion, and a desperate, wild hope, but he didn’t think they knew he was watching. 

He spurred the ship on faster, heart hammering, hoping he would make it in time.

**********  
They were both battered, bruised, burned and broken, but still fighting. Jaina had to admit to herself that she was more than a little surprised to find herself on such an even ground with her older, taller, infinitely angrier brother. But they were both tiring, and she didn’t know how much longer they could keep this fight going. 

His lightsaber came down inches from her head, slamming into the rain of the walk they stood on, slicing through it and into the floor just in front of her feet, making the section of walk she stood on tilt sickeningly. She couldn’t hide the blind flash of fear that pulsed from her, grabbing wildly for the rail with her free hand and calling the Force to stick her feet and keep her up.

Another blow didn’t come. She was distracted, off balance, vulnerable. It would have been the perfect moment for him to end it. 

But he didn’t.

Jaina looked up, and was shocked to meet sad, afraid, horror stricken eyes, sweat running down the face of a little boy she once knew. 

Her brother, looking back at her, for the first time in so long.

Terrified at the thought that he had almost killed his sister, severed the last bit of his family and his humanity. 

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she murmured. “We can fix it. We can go back. We can make things right.

“Come home with me, Ben.”  
**********  
He stared at his sister, the darkness in him warring with his own senses, urging him to come back, to end this, to kill her and be done with it all. 

Come home with me, Ben.

He couldn’t, he didn’t have a home, this was his place, his destiny, he was in command of the First Order, the most powerful being in the galaxy … 

Come home with me, Ben. 

It was a lie, he couldn’t go home with her. He would be killed the moment he so much as looked at the New Republic. 

Come home with me, Ben. 

They could run, they could leave it all behind, they could start over. Make a new home. 

Come home with me, Ben.

Why would she want that? After all he had done, why would she want a home with him?

Come home with me, Ben. 

He let his lightsaber fall.  
**********  
She stepped closer, disengaging her lightsaber but not quite brave enough to put it away, hand outstretched. She watched the play of emotions across Ben’s face, his internal war spilling across his eyes, his cheeks, pouring into the Force, lava hot anger and sizzling panic and desperate, fleeting, scrabbling … hope. Tentative love. Guilt and shame and fear. And love. 

His fingers reaching towards hers. Confusion swimming in his eyes. Lips trembling. 

Searing white-hot pain burning into her side. Betrayal and anger pulsing into the Force. The rail of the walkway rushing up to meet her, solid and painful across her abdomen, the weakened floor panel giving way under her feet. A rush of air, and she was falling, crashing into the darkness.

**********  
Ben watched the whole, horrible scene play in front of him, body frozen, unable to break the hold, terrified and angry, with her, but also with himself for letting her get the upper hand, letting her dupe him. 

Watched the blaster bolt sear into Jaina, knocking her off balance, into the already broken railing, watched as she disappeared into the rubble and darkness below. 

Managed to move his eyes to the girl holding the blaster, on a high platform behind where Jaina had been. She had concealed herself well, had grabbed hold of him and held him without him noticing. 

What a good job he had done at training her.

Rey leaped down, landing lightly in front of him, eyes burning with anger - and a little betrayal.

“I knew you couldn’t do it,” she hissed. “I knew you would be too weak, too cowardly.”

She sighed, raised her lightsaber - his grandfather’s lightsaber. “I suppose I’ll have to finish this myself.” 

Though she had released him, Ben made no move to reach for his own lightsaber, to defend himself, still to stunned and shocked and despairing, when he heard the snap-hiss of another blade being activated, and a blur of grey robes leapt in front of him to meet the strike. 

Because he needed a little more weird in this day. 

“Go,” his uncle hissed at him through gritted teeth, lightsaber holding Rey’s in check, tinting her shocked and angry face with pulsing light. “Find your sister. Get out.” 

Ben didn’t pause to consider if he should stay, help his uncle. He knew this battle was between the two of them, between Luke and Rey. He also knew Luke was right - Ben’s duty now was to find his sister, to get out of this mess, keep her safe. 

So he turned, and he ran. 

**********  
Jaina wasn’t entirely certain if she had lost consciousness from the fall, but judging from the throbbing pain in her skull that she couldn’t account for, and the rubble around her she didn’t remember hitting, she guessed she had. 

She waited for a moment, trying to reach into the Force around the pounding in her head. She could still feel Ben’s presence, though far away (where had she fallen?) and two other, familiar, surprising presences - Rey, her burning power now roiling with hatred and pain, and … Uncle Luke. 

Jaina stood, legs wobbling, and took in her surroundings. Piles of boxes, metal slats, coiled wire - some sort of construction? The base was unfinished, after all. She tilted her head to look up, immediately regretting the decision as pain throbbed across her skull and her vision blurred out for a long moment. When it cleared, she could see only a haze of red light, and far, far above, blips of strobing color that looked suspiciously like a lightsaber - and not a red one. Her fuzzy mind couldn’t quite process what this all meant, so she started with things it could. 

Climb up. She couldn’t see a way, and she wasn’t keen on trying to Force-leap her throbbing brain and body up there with no idea what was happening.

Get out of this mess. Door. 

Each step sent a painful jolt through her, something leg and hip related seemed almost broken, and her brain wasn’t quite sure just how far away the floor was each time she lifted her foot. Drawing all the strength she could from the Force, Jaina managed to quell most of the pain and make it to the door, though even the Force didn’t seem able to clear her foggy thoughts. It took little mechanical persuasion to open the door, though she winced at the loud hissing whoosh. She stepped through into a brightly lit hall, blinking rapidly, eyes seeming unable to adjust to the glare-

-and found herself staring at the gleaming helmets of some half dozen Storm Troopers who had come to investigate the noise her crashing must have made. 

Jaina let out a long, slow breath, cursing herself for not investigating the hallway in the Force before opening the door.

“Well. Alright then.” 

She raised her lightsaber, deflected countless blaster bolts before she managed to land a strike on one of them, let herself get lost in the fray. 

It was over very, very quickly. 

She leaned against the corridor wall, panting, channeling the Force to a newly discovered pain that felt very much like broken ribs. She reached out, but sensed no other presences nearby. 

Taking a moment to gather herself, Jaina realized with a jolt of shock that she was in the maintenance corridor that would run directly to the base reactor control room. It felt a little too easy, being serendipitously dropped right where she needed to be - or rather, where Kyp had needed to be while she confronted her brother. 

Jaina shoved the tide of emotions down. She would mourn Kyp properly later. For now, she had work to do.

There was surprising little resistance on her way to the control room. It took all her concentration to get her hands to work the door controls, and then she was through, into a small, stuffy room full of banks of equipment. A technician started and stared at her, but a gentle nudge made him forget her and remember an urgent task. 

She stepped towards the nearest keyboard, screens lighting up around her, begging her brain to remember the sequences and codes the informants had relayed to her. She reached out a hand - \- and the world spun sickeningly, the floor rushing to meet her. 

**********  
Luke sprang back away from the girl, from Rey, from the darkness and the pain and the fear and the desperation in front of him. 

Tears shown in her eyes, and if he had thought he had failed before, he knew it now. This girl had come to him wanting a place and a purpose, and he had turned her away out of his own misguided fear and anger. And now it was too late. 

She raised her lightsaber, and Luke knew this would be the hardest fight of his life. Rey had a power like nothing he had seen, stronger than his father, than his nieces and nephews, than any student he had ever had. But the power was raw, and wild, and desperate. 

She was powerful - but he was stronger. 

**********  
Drawing every last ounce of energy from the Force that she could find, Jaina grasped the edge of the console and slowly crawled herself to her feet. Her vision faded in and out, tinted alternately red and black and blurred into crawling lines. She forced down the rising nausea, raised a bloody, shaking hand, managed to enter the override, splice into the reactor core. Take it down. Scramble the access codes so no one could undo her work. Jam the locks on the doors leading to it so no one could get in there and manually stop it. Sirens blared, red lights flashed to compete with the haze in her vision. Smiling a little, Jaina let herself slide to the floor, warm, soothing waves of darkness lapping across her consciousness  
**********  
The warning came screeching through Poe’s cockpit and those of his crew simultaneously. The base reactor was overheating, the core primed to burst, taking everything around it down along with it. The order to retreat came shortly after. 

They had made it, then. Or, at least, one of them had, far enough to destroy the base. Poe stared at the base, willing the two small, nearly invisible craft to pop out at any moment. There had been no word, no signal, no other sign of what had gone on inside the base. 

He clicked a quiet message to Jaina, waited, staring at the screen, as craft streamed all around him, friend and foe alike no longer concerned with the battle, but with survival. 

Nothing.

His squadron had formed up around him. Poe raised his head, signaled them back to the carrier, moved to follow, letting his duty to these people override all the other emotions and bald stubborness warring in him. 

They couldn’t be that lucky again.  
**********  
Ben Solo ran harder than he had ever run in his entire life. Heart pounding, legs trembling, adrenaline and fear coursing through his veins. Desperate to find his sister, not to lose her now that he had let himself feel again. Love, again. 

Come home with me, Ben. 

He had failed and fallen, destroyed the Jedi Order, his family, his galaxy, everything he had known and loved. 

Somehow, he made his legs move faster, hurtling through the alarm-washed halls towards the waning light in the Force that was his sister. 

He had one last chance; he would not fail her.  
**********  
The soothing, dark waves had almost overtaken her when a pair of warm, strong arms were lifting her, cradling her, warmth and love and healing radiating through the Force. The arms coaxed her into sitting, helping her hold up her head, and she slowly registered a voice talking to her through the ringing in her ears.

Ben’s voice. 

Her brother’s voice. Her brother’s arms. Not the evil, angry, dark mass of a man that called himself Kylo Ren.

Her brother. 

She left him help her to her unsteady feet, hold her until the world was right-side up again. His face, unmasked, strained and scared and years younger, hovering close to her.

“We have to go.”

We. 

He took her hand, and they ran, her big brother lending his strength and support, keeping her upright, moving forward, body screaming with every step, as the walls shook and rumbled around them.  
**********  
Luke held the dying girl in his arms as the base collapsed around them, offering what comfort he could as her eyes slipped closed, as her breathing slowed and shallowed. He hadn’t wanted it to end this way, though he had suspected, from the moment she had stepped out of the Falcon, that it would. He hadn’t wanted to train her, fearing, much as Yoda had with his father, that she held too much fear, too much power, too much that could be easily turned and dangerous. Turning her away had been just as much of a mistake. But he couldn’t go back now. 

He reached out in the Force, feeling for his niece and .. nephew .. a word he hadn’t thought in so long, finding them still alive, fleeing, and lent his support and strength. 

Sent all his hopes that they would succeed where he had failed. For the galaxy, for the Jedi.

For themselves.

He would not be joining them. 

**********

They had reached the hanger, Ben half dragging his sister through the last few halls. He stared at the ship waiting in the hanger, felt Jaina’s own surprise leach through her exhaustion. 

The Falcon stared back at them. 

Idly Ben supposed his uncle would have had to get here somehow, and the Falcon made sense. Rey had told him, when she first came to join him, that she and Chewie had stopped at a trading port after leaving Luke, and she had given him the slip to join a cargo ship bound to join up with the First Order. 

Chewie. Ben wondered where he was now, and felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of the Wookie wandering the port, confused and likely sad. He squashed that down - he had a lot to feel guilty for later. Right now, he had to focus on getting Jaina out of here and into a med bay. 

Any one of the smaller craft in the hanger would have been faster, easier to pilot, but he thought the Falcon would give them the greatest chance of not being shot down by whoever was waiting outside, Resistance or New Republic or any of the smaller, scattered governments he had heard had joined the fight. 

Jaina fell into the copilots seat, no argument in her about it - they both knew she wouldn’t have the strength to actually fly. It took every ounce of her energy to help him through powering up the ship, and Ben tried to use the Force to do all he could so that she didn’t have to get up, or expend the energy reaching out herself. Still, by the time he was maneuvering them out of the crumbling hanger, she was slumped in the chair, breathing erratic, eyes too large and too bright. 

“Hold on,” he whispered. “I’ll get you home.”


End file.
